Training the Next Generation of Advocates Through Holistic Representation in the Law School Clinic

Overview: Individuals who access indigent legal services often present a myriad of social determinants of health needs and health disparities. Stanford Law School launched the Legal-Social Work Collaborative to address the vast complex needs of clients. The findings from the data and implications for interprofessional education and collaboration will be discussed.Proposal text: Critical conversations about human rights must include clients who have been historically stigmatized and underserved–populations who have been deemed disposable or expendable by society. As social workers and advocates for social justice, we cannot ignore the needs of clients who have been impacted by our legal systems (particularly our criminal legal system). Individuals who access indigent legal services often present a myriad of social determinants of health needs and health disparities. Thus contact with legal systems are opportunities to reach individuals from underserved communities and connect them with desperately needed resources and services.

Many social work students complete their MSW education without any knowledge of social work in legal settings. As more public defender offices and legal settings integrate social work to provide more holistic representation, the social work workforce will need to be able to fill this demand with appropriately trained MSW graduates. This training must include not only content related to the unique role of social work advocacy in legal settings, but also skill development related to effective collaboration, self-awareness, self-reflection, and use-of-self.
As professionals we understand that we have to know how to collaborate with others (e.g. across disciplines, across agencies) effectively, but this is rarely taught in formal graduate education settings. Successful collaboration requires self-awareness and self- reflection from team members in order to be effective in our roles as advocates on behalf of our clients.

In 2018, the Mills Legal Clinic at Stanford Law School launched the Legal-Social Work Collaborative (LSWC)--an opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration between law students and graduate social work interns to address the vast complex needs of clinic clients. As professionals, we understand that to be responsive to complex client needs, we have to know how to collaborate with others effectively (e.g. across disciplines, across agencies), but this is rarely taught in formal graduate education settings. LSWC launched with the goals of expanding clinical legal education to include training on interdisciplinary collaboration that ultimately advances clients’ legal goals and enhances non-legal outcomes.

LSWC has actively incorporated data collection practices to inform program development and program evaluation to measure the efficacy and impact of the collaboration. Using the PRAPARE (Protocol for Responding to and Assessing Patient Assets, Risks, and Experiences) tool that was developed by the a national coalition of community health centers, the LSWC has been gathering data on the social determinants of health (SDOH) that impact our individual cases in order to assess areas for social work advocacy and intervention. LSWC also administers quarterly surveys amongst law students to capture data about their learning outcomes. Finally, similar to a course evaluation, a field evaluation survey was developed and administered to the graduate social work students in the LSWC to evaluate the field supervisor and the field placement experience. The findings from the data and implications for interprofessional education and collaboration will be discussed.