The Medical Legal Partnership: Providing Families with Educational Legal Supports
By Brandon Martinez, Research Associate, Sara Carrión, Policy Associate, Zarrin Mahmud, Intern, and Grace Amato, Intern
As access to special education services has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, staff at one Medical Legal Partnership (MLP) have advocated for students’ special education needs and helped families navigate the complex service landscape in New York City. A newly released final evaluation of the program shows that the MLP successfully supported participants and staff, and that the benefits of pursuing educational legal services far outweighed the costs.
As many parents and guardians know, raising school-aged children requires juggling work, home, and other commitments. For lower-income individuals, non-English speakers, and other groups with historically lower access to resources, it can be especially difficult to ensure their children receive the education they are entitled to, particularly when they require special education-related services. New York City has struggled for years to provide students with the effective special education services to which they are entitled, and that problem has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
To address these barriers and increase the accessibility of trauma-informed clinical services, educational legal advocacy, and support, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office—through the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII)—funded a Medical Legal Partnership (MLP) between The Legal Aid Society (LAS) and Mt. Sinai Morningside’s Child and Family Institute (CFI), in which it was located. From families already working with the CFI, staff identified those who could benefit from a LAS attorney who could advocate for their special education needs, help them navigate the service landscape, and connect them with needed services they may have previously been unaware of or unable to afford. The program reduced the time burden for parents, as well as helped them overcome the often complicated and bureaucratic challenges of navigating services, by providing a warm hand off in an already trusted location where families could receive help with their health, education, and legal needs.
Following prior findings from an interim evaluation report, the newly released final report now provides a full evaluation of the program. These findings from the final program and cost evaluation of the MLP indicate that it successfully supported participants and staff, and that the benefits of pursuing educational legal services far outweighed the costs.
Services Provided by the MLP
Throughout the program, MLP staff worked to support youth with learning disabilities and ensure that they could thrive academically. The program also facilitated collaboration across sectors and organizations to best serve participants’ needs.
“[LAS] reached out to my son's school and pushed the fact that he needed to be transferred to another school because he wasn't getting the services that he needed there.”
— Family Member
The program provided a wide variety of educational legal services to parents who otherwise would not have received them (Figure 1). Nearly all program participants received ongoing advocacy and advice on education issues that supported their goals (99 percent), such as initializing an individualized education plan (IEP) that recognizes their disabilities and accommodations. Others obtained support for IEPs along with class placements in settings that better supported them.
Figure 1. Educational Services Received Through the MLP (N=313)
How the MLP Supported Families and Served Systemically Excluded Students
The evaluation found that parents who were served by the MLP experience systemic barriers to educational services, or were unaware of what services were available. The majority (77 percent) of families served by the MLP were in or near poverty, with a household income below $40,000.
“The income level is very low to qualify for [MLP services], so [families] just wouldn't have been able to pay, even on a sliding scale, for any level of educational advocacy like this. It wouldn't have been available to them.”
— Clinician
In addition, more than 80 percent of MLP participants were Black or Latinx, compared to a citywide average of 68 percent (Figure 2). According to data, Black and Latinx students with disabilities are disproportionately affected by disciplinary practices, which may lead to legal involvement that can adversely affect their education[1] and life outcomes. By providing legal and mental health services, the MLP worked to advocate for educational supports that may prevent this kind of disciplinary action and allow students to reach their goals and avoid legal involvement. For additional information on the school-to-prison pipeline, read more here.
Figure 2. Race-Ethnicity of MLP Participants and NYC Department of Education Students
The MLP was Cost-Beneficial in Providing Services to Families
Findings from the evaluation’s return-on-investment (ROI) analysis show that the value of pursuing and achieving educational milestones far outweighed the costs of providing services to families (Figure 3). Program costs included the time it took to train staff, conduct intake meetings, develop individual case strategies for clients, and conduct intake processes with families. Program benefits include the time spent by qualified attorney advocates who can help families obtain results, such as the establishment of an IEP, but may also include the value of achieving some milestone (e.g., when the state agrees to pay a student's private school tuition). Overall, in one of the analyses, the program had an 819 percent return on investment, with a per-student cost of $1,641 and a per-student benefit of $15,088. For more information on the evaluation’s complete ROI analysis, read more here.
Figure 3. Overall Per-Student Return-on-Investment (in 2019 Dollars)
How to Sustain the MLP to Continue Serving Families
The evaluation of the MLP identified several key actions that can be taken to sustain the program and continue providing educational legal services to families:
Address factors that constrain families’ engagement
Generating trust in the legal system, addressing experiences of trauma, and providing additional communication support—such as providing services in different languages and increasing translation capabilities—would strengthen families' engagement with the program.
Get the word out
More families could learn more about the MLP with a broader referral process, including outreach via school social media, community notice boards, and targeted outreach in schools.
Foster family relationships
Community-building among parents and families of students receiving special education services was an important aspect of MLP participation. Providing families with additional community-building opportunities, such as support groups, would strengthen the program's relationship with participants.
Fund supplemental social supports
The MLP should consider dedicating finances to provide families with social supports such as school supplies, deposits for school placement, and public transportation assistance.
Maintain the program
Given the positive impact that the program has had on families and students, the program demonstrated it is a wise investment for foundations, government, legal agencies, the Mt. Sinai Health system, and other funders.
These actions can help ensure that MLP and similar models are not only sustained, but also can grow and serve more families. The positive results from MLP show us why all families should have access to legal advocacy to help support their educational rights.
About the Program and Evaluation
The MLP program evaluation, conducted by the American Institutes for Research, and the program itself was funded through the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII) of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (DANY).
About the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG) and the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII)
The CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance manages the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII). ISLG provides technical assistance, conducts oversight, measures performance, and manages all CJII grantees.
The CJII focuses on three investment areas—crime prevention, reentry and diversion, and supports for survivors of crime. This initiative is part of the CJII’s crime prevention-focused investments in Youth, Families, and Communities. Specifically, the MLP Program is funded through the Family and Youth Development initiative, whose goal is to provide supports to families that address risk factors associated with increased chances of youth becoming involved in the justice system.
[1] New York Civil Liberties Union. (2022). School-to-prison pipeline. https://www.nyclu.org/en/issues/racial-justice/school-prison-pipeline, Hjalmarsson, R. (2008). Criminal justice involvement and high school completion. Journal of Urban Economies, 63(2), 613–630. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2007.04.003
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