The Medical-Legal Partnership for Children in Hawai'i (MLPC) is a unique collaboration between the William S. Richardson School of Law (University of Hawai'i at Mānoa) and Kōkua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services (KKV), a community health center. We address and improve the social determinants of health that impact child and family well-being by engaging in “preventive legal care” alongside “preventive health care.”
Since April of 2009, MLPC lawyers, law students, doctors and medical residents have worked together on-site at KKV health center to provide direct legal services to over 500 low-income families in Kalihi Valley. MLPC attorneys and law students often meet with families right in the exam rooms, while children wait for their vaccinations and booster shots. MLPC has reached hundreds more through "Know Your Rights" outreach and educational workshops.
MLPC Hawai‘i engages in systemic advocacy alongside the communities we serve, focusing on advocacy and policy solutions that emerge from the “ground” up. MLPC also hosts numerous professional trainings each year for health professionals, including grand rounds education; law updates for clinical staff; and interdisciplinary engagement for medical students and medical residents. Throughout the year we train UH Law and other graduate students in this model of collaborative services and public health policy engagement.
MLPC Hawaiʻi is based on a model developed in 1993 by the Boston Medical Clinic when Dr. Barry Zuckerman hired an attorney to “address the social determinants that negatively impact the health of vulnerable populations.” Today, the MLP model has grown to a national network of over 230 healthcare sites in 34 states. In 2014, MLPC Hawai‘i was honored to receive an “Outstanding MLP Award” by the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership at the National Summit in Seattle, Washington.
More information is available at www.MLPCHawaii.org.
