The Health Law Partnership (HeLP) Legal Services Clinic at Georgia State University College of Law is an interdisciplinary clinic aimed at addressing children’s health harming legal needs.
Through the HeLP clinic experience, law students have the opportunity to regularly work side by side with medical students and residents from both Morehouse School of Medicine and Emory School of Medicine. Occasionally, the clinic has also hosted students from other professional disciplines, such as public health, bioethics and social work.
This academic year, in addition to medical students and residents, the HeLP clinic has a Georgia State University Master of Social Work student who is completing her field placement at HeLP. Ehlam Frank (M.S.W. ’23), who has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and sociology, has a long-standing interest in children’s health and well-being.
“I look forward to gaining first-hand experience in conducting interviews, reviewing records and facilitating research to find solutions to the social and policy issues that are persistent within our community,” said Frank. “I’m excited to start this journey and effectively work with other students who are passionate and determined to change lives.”
Social workers are trained to work with individuals and families during challenging life circumstances, to identify unmet needs and to refer them to community resources and services. Working together, lawyers, health care providers and social workers can take a more holistic approach to addressing their clients’ cases.
“One of the goals of the HeLP clinic is to normalize the interdisciplinary collaboration of these budding professionals to achieve the best outcomes for children with health harming legal needs. Adding a social work student to the team furthers that goal,” said Brooke Silverthorn (J.D. ’03), HeLP clinic co-director.
This is the first year in quite some time that the HeLP clinic has been able to host a social work student in the clinic. “I am so pleased that we were able to rekindle our relationship with the School of Social Work and have an M.S.W. student join our interdisciplinary team,” said Silverthorn.