Lawyers for Kids – PediaCast 583

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Description

Cari Stork and Callie Query visit the studio as we explore Lawyers for Kids. Discover how this program connects families with free legal support to address issues directly impacting health and wellness. We hope you can join us!

Topic

Lawyers for Kids

Guests

Cari Stork
Program Manager
Lawyers for Kids
Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Callie Query
Managing Attorney
Lawyers for Kids
Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Links

Lawyers for Kids at Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Lawyers for Kids (on Anchor)
Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio
Find a Legal Aid Organization in Your Area
American Bar Association – Free Legal Help

Episode Transcript

[Dr Mike Patrick]
This episode of PediaCast is brought to you by Lawyers for Kids and Nationwide Children's Hospital. Hello everyone, and welcome once again to PediaCast. It is a pediatric podcast for moms and dads.

This is Dr. Mike coming to you from Nationwide Children's Hospital. We're in Columbus, Ohio. It's episode 583.

We're calling this one Lawyers for Kids. I want to welcome everyone to the program. So, coming up on this episode of PediaCast, we're going to consider what if your child's health depended not only on doctors and nurses, but also on lawyers.

Sometimes that is the case, and so today we are going to explore a group called Lawyers for Kids. They are a medical legal partnership at Nationwide Children's Hospital that connects families with free legal support to address issues that directly impact health and well-being. So, from housing and benefits to education and guardianship, these legal interventions often change lives.

And so, we're going to talk about this program, how it got started, the sorts of services that they provide, and how you can connect with them if you need to or find similar services around the country. We have a couple of great guests joining us for the conversation. Cari Stork is program manager for Lawyers for Kids, and Callie Query is managing attorney for the organization, both of them with Nationwide Children's Hospital.

They're going to explain how the program works, why it matters, and the many ways it is helping kids and families thrive. Before we get to them, I do want to remind you the information presented in every episode of PediaCast is for general educational purposes. Only we do not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals.

If you're concerned about your child's health, be sure to call your health care provider. Also, your use of this audio program is subject to the PediaCast Terms of Use Agreement, which you can find at PediaCast.org. So, let's take a quick break. We'll get Cari Stork and Callie Query settled into the studio, and then we will be back to talk about Lawyers for Kids. It's coming up right after this. 

Cari Stork is the program manager of Lawyers for Kids at Nationwide Children's Hospital, and Callie Query is the program manager of Lawyers for Kids at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

She holds a master's in social work from Ohio State and an MBA from Franklin University. She's also a licensed social work supervisor. Callie Query is the managing attorney for Lawyers for Kids at Nationwide Children's.

She holds a law degree from the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. She developed the legal services program for the Center for Family Safety and Healing before overseeing that program's consolidation with the medical legal partnership at our hospital, which led to the formation of Lawyers for Kids. Cari and Callie have a passion for helping families navigate the often-complex legal system and advocate for kids and parents impacted by housing instability, lack of insurance, financial insecurity, family violence and many other legal issues, which we will talk about shortly.

But before we dive into our topic, let's offer a warm PediaCast welcome to Cari Stork and Callie Query. Thank you both so much for being here today.

[Cari Stork]
Oh, thanks. Happy to be here.

[Callie Query]
Yes, we're excited to talk about Lawyers for Kids with you today.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
And we are excited about it, too. I'm really looking forward to raising awareness about this really, really terrific program that helps so many families. Let's start with the basics.

Cari, what exactly is a medical legal partnership and how does that fit into the traditional health care model?

[Cari Stork]
Yeah, so a medical legal partnership is a collaboration between health care providers and attorneys where we bring civil legal services into the health care setting to address social or economic needs that we know impact health. MLPs offer a level of care that is typically not seen in the traditional health care model. When people seek legal services, they don't often think that going to the doctor's office is going to be the place where they're going to be able to talk to an attorney.

But when we provide that level of care in the medical setting, we provide more holistic care. MLPs recognize the importance of the environments that we are born into, that we grow, that we age, that we live, we work, we play in, and how these environments can most definitely impact our health outcomes.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, absolutely. And I imagine that this is really important across the age spectrum in terms of there being the need for legal help as we think about health care and the different stages of life. For the pediatric patient and their families, these can be particularly important.

Why exactly is that, Cari?

[Cari Stork]
Because we know that early intervention is the best intervention. We want to try and meet patients where they are in an environment where they're comfortable, where they're used to disclosing sensitive information and really open up that discussion to include more issues that are seen in the community.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, and kids really are more vulnerable and don't always seek out advocacy or may not have the best advocates around them. And so really getting all the help that they can get is just so important and not only for the kids, but for the entire family unit. So, Cari, how often is it that families need this sort of service?

And I would suspect that because there's not as much awareness about this, that maybe not nearly as many people get help that could use it.

[Cari Stork]
Now, that is accurate, Dr. Mike. So medical services have offered free care in certain contexts, right? But accessing pro bono legal services can be very challenging for family.

So, integrating a free legal service in a medical setting can really benefit patients by addressing these legal needs. Research that has been completed by Legal Services Corporation, it's actually the Justice Gap Report, is what I'm referencing. That report reveals that approximately 80 percent of low-income families face a social or economic issue that could be addressed through legal services.

But only about 8 percent of those families were able to access legal services. So, the significant gap that exists between need and intervention really highlights the vital role that medical-legal partnerships play.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
As we think about the legal world and the medical world, there's this concept of health-harming legal needs. So, in other words, legal needs that without, if they're not met, they really can harm a person's health. What are some examples of health-harming legal needs, Callie?

[Callie Query]
Health-harming legal needs really is just the term that medical-legal partnerships use to describe what many other professions call social determinants of health. Really, all of those outside factors that we know impacts health, everyone's health, but particularly child health. And when we characterize them as health-harming legal needs to indicate two things.

One, that those issues really do impact health and have a significant impact on our children's health outcomes at Nationwide Children's Hospital. But also, to help people recognize, both our patients and our clinicians, that many of those social determinants of health or outside issues have some sort of legal solution. A lot of times, families are not thinking about, you know, if they get a notice that their child is being suspended from school.

Their first thought isn't, oh, this is a legal issue. I need an attorney to help me through this. But by locating a medical-legal partnership at a hospital, like Cari said, where patients are discussing these issues every day with their providers, it allows us to kind of reach out to patients who may not even realize that they need the assistance of a lawyer.

You know, in terms of the subject matter of what we do, you know, you mentioned housing. When a family is facing eviction or housing conditions issues, that really can impact whether that is a child with asthma or in an eviction situation, if a family has to move, that really impacts the child's educational progress if they have to move schools. When we have patients and families who are being denied benefits, you know, certainly not having Medicaid or food stamps is going to impact child health.

And if we can address those issues and get them resolved, you know, arguably a family is going to have health care, they're going to have food. And that's very similar to all of the other issues that we address that really do tie pretty closely to health outcomes.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
And I think this is important not only for the families that you are serving, but really the whole community needs to know about this service, because oftentimes if you're in that situation where maybe you have unsafe housing or you don't have your kids don't have insurance, they're not signed up with something and you're getting bills or there's domestic violence, you know, all sorts of things that then cause stress. And like you said, the first thing you're not thinking is, oh, I need a lawyer. But if you have someone around you who can see the bigger picture and knows about this program, you know, they may be able to say, hey, you know, one way that you could get help is this or that.

And so, I think just having the awareness and then feeling, you know, like you can help folks out that you come across in your circle of influence, you know, just to let them know that, hey, this exists. Cari, how did Lawyers for Kids get started and what is it exactly that you guys do from an organization standpoint?

[Cari Stork]
Yeah, so Lawyers for Kids was established in early 2020 through the merger of two existing hospital programs. As Callie had mentioned earlier, or I believe we had talked about in our introduction, she started the Center for Family Safety and Healing, MLP, back in 2013 or so. And she was providing legal services to adult services clients at that time.

That program was going very well, and the hospital saw the value in that program. So, in 2016, the hospital started a small ambulatory medical-legal partnership, and that medical-legal partnership was founded with legal aid of Southeast and Central Ohio. That was really how that partnership began.

In order for us to provide the best care to our NCH patients and families, it was really determined that both programs needed to merge. So, Lawyers for Kids was formed in early 2020.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Now, is this a unique program or do lots of children's hospitals across the country or really even adult hospitals have this kind of program or is this really unique to us?

[Callie Query]
Medical-legal partnerships started in Boston in the early 80s, but it has really taken time for the movement to gain momentum. There has been research conducted, I would say mostly in the past 10 years, that really shows the health outcome, the benefits of medical-legal partnerships on health outcomes. And so, as that as the research has grown, the prevalence of medical-legal partnerships has grown.

They are in most of the top 10 children's hospitals, certainly. But what makes Lawyers for Kids unique is our model.

[Cari Stork]
Callie's right. Our model is very unique at the hospital. We have three distinct arms of intervention here at Lawyers for Kids that enables us to connect families with the proper legal service.

We screen families here at Nationwide Children's to determine their legal needs. And then we determine here at Lawyers for Kids how we're going to link them with legal services. LFK has five in-house staff attorneys, six including our managing attorney, Callie, that are all here to provide legal care to our patients and families.

We maintain our ongoing partnership with Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, and they provide a higher level of legal intervention when necessary for our patients. Additionally, we have a network of volunteer attorneys who assist our NCH children and families with specific legal needs, such as education concerns or needing help with guardianship paperwork for medically complex children.

[Callie Query]
And that is what, you know, really makes Lawyers for Kids unique in that we have multiple arms of legal assistance available. A lot of medical legal partnerships throughout the country are partnerships with a local legal aid organization, which is great because our legal aid organizations in the United States really are at the forefront of representing individuals, especially low-income individuals with these civil legal issues. But we found at Nationwide Children's Hospital that while our partnership with Legal Aid is very valued and very important part of Lawyers for Kids, having hospital employed attorneys allows us to provide a smoother connection to our patients and families and to serve people who may not qualify for services from an outside agency.

So that is actually unique. There are not a lot of medical legal partnerships that have hospital employed attorneys, and we have six now as our program grows. And that has enabled us in all of those different arms to serve almost 2,400 patients and families last year.

Whether we handled the case with our in-house attorneys, whether we sent a matter to Legal Aid for in-court representation or whether one of our valued pro bono partners in the community took on a case to provide pro bono services.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Now, is this always a free service for families or is it is it something that if you can pay, then you pay and, you know, maybe a sliding scale or something for others? Or is it absolutely free for everyone that you that you take care of?

[Cari Stork]
Lawyers for Kids is a free and confidential service that is available to NCH children and families. We do not charge for any of our services.

[Callie Query]
We are fully funded by the hospital. I think Nationwide Children's, I think the public knows that Nationwide Children's Hospital does a really great job of helping families address the medical issues that their children face. I don't know that people are as aware of all of the other efforts of the hospital to address things like health harming, legal needs and social determinants of health.

So, we are very lucky at Nationwide Children's Hospital that the hospital values population health initiatives like Lawyers for Kids and funds our program almost entirely because we do not bill, we do not charge. We have this year obtained a grant from the Ohio Department of Children and Families that has allowed us to expand our services to pregnant and parenting people. But generally, the hospital believes that this is a very important part of the overall services that a child really needs.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
And I'm going to say that this really speaks volumes about our hospital and the culture of the care that we provide. They can say, hey, we're going to hire a handful of lawyers. That's those are not low salaries and benefits and all those things, because this is an important, an important aspect of really taking care of our community and our community being all the kids we serve, regardless of where you live.

I will say, though, we know that there's a cost to this. And so, folks who donate to Nationwide Children's Hospital, I know that we do have through our foundation a mechanism by which people can say, hey, I want to donate to Nationwide Children's, but I want my money to go to this. And Lawyers for Kids, I would suspect, would be one of those areas that people could say.

So, if you're a lawyer and you're and you're looking to support a cause, this might be a good one to help out financially because these things are never free, but they really make a world of difference to the families that we serve here at the hospital.

[Callie Query]
We actually have initiatives to bring Lawyers for Kids and the message to lawyers in the community. And we have been the beneficiaries of financial gifts, but also of volunteer hours. So, we have attorneys from Nationwide Insurance, from Voorhees, from Densmore, different firms in the community who volunteer their time to help Lawyers for Kids.

But back to the hospital, I mean, it's the right thing to do to fund programs like this. But I also always want to emphasize that medical-legal partnerships are an evidence-based initiative, and there's lots of research that shows that providing legal services to parents reduces caregiver stress, which we know is highly correlated to child health. It also decreases hospitalization for families that we've actually assisted.

We actually have data that show that we've been able to decrease hospitalization, but there's been lots of research studies that show that when you address housing conditions or you get somebody medical insurance or some sort of medical equipment that they've been denied, they're less likely to go to the hospital. And when I talk about it, you know, I always say it's not rocket science, right? I mean, if you help if you help someone address a stressor in their life, they are going to be happier and healthier and better able to focus on the things that they need.

But I do like to point out that, you know, there's good research that shows that patients are more likely to attend their appointments and take their medication. And even that clinicians have reported increased job satisfaction when they have access to a medical-legal partnership. Yeah.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
What are some of the specific issues that Lawyers for Kids can help families with? This isn't just any legal issue, right? So, what are some of the things that are green light and some of the things that, no, we don't we don't do?

[Callie Query]
Yeah, many medical-legal partnerships will just focus on one or two areas of law. But at Lawyers for Kids, we know that there's a wide range of issues that impact child health. So, our limitation is really around civil-legal issues.

We do help with civil-legal issues, so we're not going to be able to help with a criminal issue. But generally, if there's a civil-legal issue that impacts the health and well-being of the family, we are going to get involved. The main categories that we help with are benefits.

So, a family is denied benefits, or their benefits are being terminated, whether we're talking about Social Security or food stamps or Medicaid or even an insurance denial for medical equipment or home health care hours. We do a lot of work around housing, whether that's housing conditions or evictions or foreclosures. With family law, whether there's domestic violence, we might be advising a family about a civil protection order.

But a lot of times it's just families who are trying to navigate. Maybe the parents are unmarried. They're trying to navigate custody and visitation.

Or we might be helping a grandparent or a third party who has a child in their care but doesn't have the legal documentation to show that. Maybe the parents have a substance abuse issue or are incarcerated, and they've left a child with a family member. And that provides some barriers to that family member if they don't have legal custody to getting health care and to getting a child enrolled in school.

So, we'll get involved there and help the family with paperwork. We can help with debt, bankruptcy issues. We do a lot of guardianship work for our medically complex children who are turning 18.

And then a big chunk of what we do is education. We have attorneys who will assist with IEP meetings and 504 meetings when a family has a child with a disability who needs additional services at school. We also get involved in disciplinary issues.

A lot of times our kids with maybe some behavioral health concerns may also have some behavioral concerns. And a lot of time we know that there's huge disparities when it comes to discipline and education. And that's a national problem.

Kids who are disabled and kids who are not white are way more likely to be disciplined than an able-bodied white student. So, we get involved in all discipline cases because we believe that kids should be in school if it's at all possible. So, we do a lot of work around suspension and expulsions and trying to make sure that kids are in the best, getting the services that they need and to address some of those behavior issues, so they don't happen again.

That's really the goal to keep kids in school and because we know that if they're in school they're more likely to graduate and if they graduate, they're more likely to get a job and contribute to society. So that's really our goal is to keep kids out of that system that often leads to kids getting expelled and then potentially getting involved in the criminal justice system.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
So really any issue that involves the law and impacts the health and well-being, wellness, education of a child and by extension their family is something that you would consider taking on?

[Callie Query]
For the most part, I mean we do have some restrictions, and our clinicians know those specific types of cases that we can't help with. But for the most part, if there is any sort of civil legal issue like you described, we are going to do an intake, talk to the family and at the very least give some legal advice. I do like to talk about medical-legal partnerships and the services that attorneys provide as similar to what you might expect when you go to a doctor's appointment for an issue.

You're not always, every person isn't going to get the same advice from a doctor and every person isn't going to get the same advice from a lawyer. We may be able to do something very small that works to address the situation. Just like sometimes a doctor may tell you, oh, we're not going to do surgery, you just need to exercise or let's try this medication.

So, I think a lot of people think if a lawyer is involved, it's going to court and we're going to litigate. There is a lot that we can do behind the scenes to help families, whether that's drafting a letter to a landlord or helping them with custody paperwork or even just advising them what their rights are. And sometimes that even includes telling people that they don't have a good legal case.

And in my mind, that allows our families who are dealing with so much to say, OK, I've talked to an attorney about this. I can kind of let this go and move on and focus on something else that's important. Or we may talk to somebody who's like, well, this may be an issue.

And we say, whoa, whoa, this is a big, big issue and we need to address this, or it could be a disaster. So, we tend to at the very least provide that consultation session with our patients so we can then assess what level of care they need, just like a doctor would.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. And you can then refer, you know, if it's something that like you maybe you guys aren't going to handle this particular thing, but you know who could. And for a lot of families, you know, this is the one time that they have come up against this.

Whereas for you guys, this is what you do every day for lots of families. And so, I'm sure that there's a lot of things that are surprising to parents. And you're like, oh, no, we've heard this before.

We know exactly how we can help. And that can really bring peace, you know, to families who that you're helping. So, and as, you said, decreasing parent stress really does then increase health outcomes for kids because kids certainly are impacted by the stress experienced by their parents and their families and siblings and communities.

And in all of those things, Cari, how then are families referred to lawyers for kids? How can they get connected with you?

[Cari Stork]
So, families are screened by NCH staff who then can place the referral to LFK. LFK does not accept self-referrals from patients due to the nature of the partnership. It is really essential for a medical legal partnership to work with medical providers to ensure the best care.

So, to be linked with LFK, a family must have a child that's currently receiving some level of care here at Nationwide Children's. So, during an appointment, Nationwide Children's does an excellent job of screening our patients and families for needs that exist outside of the hospital's walls. During these appointments, NCH staff typically ask patients and families questions that can prompt these further conversations regarding health harming legal needs.

For example, if a family is asked about food insecurity and they say, oh, I tried applying for food stamps, but I was denied. This can serve as a prompt to the provider to consider contacting lawyers for kids for guidance or possibly send a referral to lawyers for kids.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, this is really important that our clinicians have awareness of this, but also that families have awareness because they may not be able to self-refer. But they could tell their doctor like, hey, I hear that you have this program called lawyers for kids. Is this situation something that they might be able to help us with?

And then that clinician would be the one to say, oh, yeah, I'm going to make the referral and get the family kind of plugged in. In order for that to happen, there needs to be awareness on the part of families and on the part of our clinicians. One of the things that intake nurses often ask, like in our urgent cares or emergency departments, we do ask those kinds of questions during intake.

You know, do you feel like you're getting the food that your family needs and have you been worried that you're not going to have a roof over your head? And so, you know, we're asking those questions. And of course, we if someone does have an issue, then we contact social work, and they can help with resources.

But there may be times when if it's really impacting a family that we could also refer to lawyers for kids, correct?

[Callie Query]
That is correct. The majority of our referrals do come from social workers and care coordinators, as well as behavioral health counselors, both at the center and behavioral health. I think some of that is just the nature of the relationship that those folks have with our families.

And also, they do it so frequently. It's kind of a process and they are the most likely to come to our training sessions. So generally, you know, I will say we don't get a ton of referrals from doctors.

Most of the times that they reach out, we say, hey, just connect with the social worker and the social worker can make the referral. But yes, we, as of January 1st, 2025, are available for any patient or family. As we've grown, we've, you know, we started in certain clinics.

Now any NCH provider can make a referral to lawyers for kids. And part of our work is also, like you said, making sure that providers know about the service. And we do monthly Lunch-and-Learns for our NCH providers on various topics of legal issues so that they can better help our patients and families and better issue spot in terms of what kind of cases can come to us.

And we often have 150 clinicians tune in for our Lunch-and-Learn. So that's also part of what my team does. Our team does in terms of making sure that people are aware.

I will say if anyone listening today has a legal issue and they are not necessarily connected with Nationwide Children's Hospital, know that there are legal services organizations in every county in the United States that are charged with addressing the type of issues that we're talking about today. And a quick Google search could find the legal aid in your area that you could connect with if you think that you might have one of these issues that we're talking about today.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Kelly, can you share with us a few recent success stories that that show the impact that Lawyers for Kids has for families?

[Callie Query]
Sure. I will say, you know, right now, housing is a big issue in the Columbus community and throughout the United States. People find, you know, housing is less affordable.

And a lot of times when our families have affordable housing, the quality of the conditions of the housing might not be that great. So, we often get involved with rectifying conditions issues, whether that's getting a landlord to remediate mold or spray for bugs or whatever that might be. You know, the classic medical legal partnership case of child with asthma who comes into the emergency room and the doctor is talking to the parents about what might be causing the flare up.

And the family reveals that maybe there's mice in the home or mold in the home. And being able to make a referral to us, I mean, we get conditions, I mean, probably 10 a week of those types of cases. And, you know, we have varying levels of success given the unique situations of the family.

But that's a large chunk of the work that we do. But if you're talking about specific cases, you know, we had a really great one that we highlighted at a recent fundraising event. A patient who was on Medicaid and working with a Medicaid managed care company was in a wheelchair.

But he was a small guy and, you know, really struggled with utilizing the mechanical wheelchair. His doctor, you know, from the start said this child really needs a motorized wheelchair to help them get around and be the most efficient and the most, you know, mobile that they can be. But the Medicaid managed care company denied that motor.

And when that happens, families have a right to a hearing with Medicaid. Often, they're intimidated by that. Often, they're not aware that they can bring an attorney.

Luckily, like I said, our clinicians and some of our, you know, our complex care, they're super familiar with lawyers for kids. So, they made a referral for this family, got connected to one of our attorneys who represented the family in the hearing, an administrative hearing. We were able to have an NCH provider attend as well to talk about why it was medically necessary for this child to have that motorized wheelchair.

And the result was that we won. And the family was granted that piece of medical equipment that actually we found out cost $14,000. So, we were able to, you know, it probably wouldn't have even been possible for the family to obtain it otherwise.

And in this case, it was medically necessary, and the insurance provider should have provided it. So, it just took a little bit of intervention. On the family law front, you know, I mentioned helping grandparents and other third parties get custody.

And often this scenario happens a lot. But in this situation, a grandma had been providing care for a child but didn't have legal custody. The biological parents had substance abuse issues and had left the child with the grandmother.

She was not able to enroll the child in school, which is usually the barrier that, you know, when it comes to us, it's because a school district is saying, well, you don't have custody. And a lot of times it's just maybe a half an hour to 45-minute appointment with an attorney to draft the paperwork, instruct the grandmother or third-party person how to file it. And in most cases, there's not even, you know, there's going to be a hearing.

Nobody's even going to show up to the other side and the grandparent is going to get custody. So, it's not complicated. It's just if you don't have that legal background, you're just very, a lot of people are very intimidated by that process.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Obviously, we've talked this entire episode about how you help patients and families. Callie has also talked about Lunch-and-Learns for hospital staff to increase awareness in what you're doing. Are there other ways that you support hospital staff?

Are you really just focused on patients and families?

[Cari Stork]
Now, we do a great job at Lawyers for Kids in supporting our internal staff because we know navigating these challenging legal concerns can be very difficult and, as Callie had said, intimidating. So, we had previously mentioned we have a consultation email. I believe this is one of our most helpful tools for hospital staff.

The internal email address is provided to all NCH staff, and we encourage them to contact us when a legal issue is disclosed by a patient in the clinic setting. Sometimes a family has a very quick question that can be emailed to LFK. LFK can provide quick advice to the clinician who can then relay that back to the family.

There are other times where a clinician will email us thinking it will be a quick advice question. But then it turns out the question is a little more nuanced and we'll just respond by saying we do need a referral to proceed. We encourage clinicians to reach out to us with all of these types of questions so we can help them navigate the concern.

There are other times where legal issues are presented in clinic, but the NCH provider is really unsure about how to navigate the issue. And in those cases, we also encourage you to reach out to us. Maybe we are the best resource for the family to land, but there might be another resource that the family could utilize that could help them just as much.

And we can help you determine those next best steps. We also, in addition to the educational content that we've already talked about, we provide information sheets for patients and families. We encourage clinicians to utilize these information sheets outside of a referral.

Sometimes a family does not need a referral to lawyers for kids. They just need a little bit of information, a little bit of advocacy that they can take and then they can move forward with. And those information sheets provide that for our patients and families.

[Callie Query]
And that's a good point in terms of our mission. You know, we want to help our families address the immediate legal issue, but we are not a long-term attorney service. We're not going to be a family's attorney for the 18 years of their child's life.

So, part of what my lawyers and our legal aid partners do when we're working with families is help educate and empower them to address some of these issues on their own if they come up again. I think our school cases are a great example of that. You know, we may have an attorney attend an IEP meeting with a family who is trying to get speech therapy and is struggling with the school to get that.

And the family sees the advocacy. The family talks to the attorney. The attorney explains what they can ask for, how they can ask for.

Even just telling people that they can request an IEP meeting anytime they want is something most people don't know. So, our goal is, you know, maybe we help the child and the family when a child's six. And maybe there's another issue when the child's 12 at school that the family, because of their intervention with LFK, is more confident and more prepared in handling on their own.

Because these issues can be handled with either guidance or support from an attorney. You don't always need an attorney to address these issues. It's helpful.

And we try to try to get involved when we can. But we also want patients and families to understand, you know, that they can advocate for themselves as well.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. You had mentioned the educational sheets that have information about particular issues. Where can providers find those?

[Callie Query]
We have an anchor page. I always just search lawyers for kids on anchor. If you do that enough, then it will populate as one of your most frequently visited sites.

But we have those information sheets that Cari described on that web page, a lot on anchor. A lot of them are focused on kind of those issues we were just talking about, things that families might be able to handle on their own or they don't necessarily want to get an attorney involved. Maybe they have a broken window that hasn't been fixed by their landlord, and they recognize that it needs to be fixed, but they're also behind in rent.

So, they're not really prepared for a landlord or an attorney to send a letter at this time. But we can give them our housing conditions information sheet, which explains how they can send a letter to notify the landlord of the issue and then what they can do. And it usually says, you know, if you don't get a response within 30 days, then ask your clinician for a referral to lawyers for kids.

[Cari Stork]
I do also want to add, though, those information sheets have been translated into the top five languages that we see here at Nationwide Children. And the reason that we have translated information sheets is because we know that many families need assistance that may not be able to understand the form in English. And we want to make sure that we are casting a wide net of information and providing, again, holistic care to all members of our community.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
For folks who may be scratching their heads and saying, what in the world is Anchor? If you're here in central Ohio and you work for Nationwide Children's, that's the name of our internal Internet that's sort of not available to the outside world. For staff at Nationwide Children's Hospital, I love that we have that lawyers for kids site with all of these information sheets.

And it may be a good idea before you ever need one of those to actually, you know, if you have a little downtime during your workday, go on Anchor, search for lawyers for kids and just see what's there. And so, you know, just having that knowledge, then when you hear of a family, you know, maybe use some key words because you've looked at that. It may kind of spark something in your mind like, oh, wait, we have we have it's kind of like the clinical helping hands that we have for medical conditions.

But we also have, I don't know, we call them like helping scales or something for the for the legal world.

[Callie Query]
We call them, that's actually a good one. I like helping scales. Information sheets.

But along with those information sheets on Anchor for our NCH clinicians, we have recordings of all those Lunch-and-Learns that we have done. But for individuals who are not associated with NCH children who might be listening to this, if you're in Ohio, Ohio Legal Help is a statewide self-help legal website. Our partners at the Legal Aids of Southeast and Central Ohio, which is www.lasco.org, has lots of resources as well. Very similar to what we have on our internal intranet. And, you know, like I said, there's legal aids throughout the country. And I think there is a movement to provide more self-help legal assistance online.

You know, you don't have to be a lawyer to address some of these issues, but it is we also acknowledge it's not easy to do on your own for a lot of people. And that's why we're here. But there is lots of information out there.

What was that website again? So, our partners, Legal Aid of Southeastern and Central Ohio, provide legal services to low-income folks in Franklin and the surrounding counties in southeastern Ohio. And their website is www.lasco.org.

So, L-A-S-C-O dot O-R-G.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
And we will put a link to that in the show notes for this episode. So, if you head over to pdacast.org, episode 583, you'll find a link to those folks. Also, Lawyers for Kids will put a link to your website as well.

And then the Lawyers for Kids on Anchor will put a link in the show notes. But if you're not on the Nationwide Children's Network or you don't have access to our network, that one won't work for you. If you're anywhere else in the country, if you just do, you know, a Google search for legal aid and maybe put pediatric in there, you're going to get all sorts of resources.

And then maybe put your state name. But the resources are out there, and they are pretty easy to find. But they are going to be fairly specific because like physicians, lawyers are licensed in their state by the bar.

And so, I'm not quite sure how that works in terms of reciprocal privileges in other states. Like we do see a lot of patients that do not live in Ohio. Do you then have to find an attorney in their state to help them out?

Is that how that works, Callie?

[Callie Query]
We try if we can refer them to their local legal aid. Sometimes we have, so my attorneys are all licensed to practice in Ohio, and we can only work on legal issues that are in Ohio. But I actually met a patient just last week who lived in a surrounding state, but their legal issue, their custody issue, is actually in Ohio.

So, we can help. But if it is somebody that has a legal issue in another state, we will provide them with their local legal aid. But we are, you know, we are only licensed to practice law in Ohio.

[Cari Stork]
What I would add is if a clinician here at Nationwide Children's is wondering about our service area, they can always email us at MLP at NationwideChildrens.org to help determine whether or not we are the resource, or another resource is best.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
And that contact information is at Lawyers for Kids, the website. And we'll put a link again to that in the show notes for this episode 583 over at Pediacast.org. So, as we wrap up, Callie, what are some key messages that you really want parents to know and understand and be aware of as we think about Lawyers for Kids?

[Callie Query]
I think NCH does a good job of emphasizing to parents that we're here to help, not just in providing the best medical care for your child but also addressing other stressors facing your family. So, if you have a patient at NCH and you're facing one of the issues that we've talked about today, reaching out to your clinician for a referral to LFK. And if you aren't ready to speak to an attorney about an issue just yet, you could take advantage of one of those self-help websites we discussed.

I think parents know the value and benefit of getting well child checks and making sure their children are exercising and eating correctly. But there's also so much that can contribute to a child's health and dealing with a legal issue, even though it's not fun. You know, a lot of the time it's not it's not comfortable to deal with some of these issues.

It really can help avoid bigger problems in the future. You know, there's a lot of issues that our families are facing. And I know that, you know, sometimes the legal issue isn't the first priority.

But we are here, and we believe that, you know, if you do take the time to address that, we're going to work together to have better health outcomes for your children.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
So once again, Cari Stork, Program Manager for Lawyers for Kids, and Callie Query, Managing Attorney for that group, both from Nationwide Children's Hospital. Thank you so much for stopping by and talking with us today.

[Cari Stork]
Yes, thank you for having us. 

[Callie Query]
Yes, it's been great.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are back with just enough time to say thanks once again to all of you for taking time out of your day and making PediaCast a part of it. Really do appreciate that. Also, thanks to our guests again this week, Cari Stork, Program Manager and Callie Query, Managing Attorney with Lawyers for Kids at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

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We turn the science up a couple notches and offer free continuing medical education credit for those who listen. And that includes physicians, of course, but also nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, social workers and dentists. And since Nationwide Children's is jointly accredited by all of those professional organizations, it's likely we offer the credits you need to fulfill your state's continuing medical education requirements.

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And if you're not only a medical provider, but also a faculty member, so you teach medicine to medical students or really any of the health sciences, we have a podcast for you as well. It's called FAMEcast. It is a faculty development podcast from the Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring and Engagement at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.

So, if you're a teacher in academic medicine or a faculty member in any of the health sciences, this is a podcast for you. And you can find FAMEcast at FameCast.org and wherever podcasts are found by searching for FAMEcast. Thanks again for stopping by.

And until next time, this is Dr. Mike saying stay safe, stay healthy and stay involved with your kids. So long, everybody.