Families experiencing poverty are inadequately supported by our justice system, which is severely under-resourced and inherently complex. Nearly 9 out of 10 families do not get the legal help they need. These unaddressed legal issues act as barriers to housing, health, and economic stability. As a result, many people do not access existing legal protections and trust in the legal system is low. The Legal First Aid Training Program works to change this by supporting community partners to act as navigators who help to identify families’ legal issues, surface unmet legal needs, and access legal protections.
The Legal First Aid Training Program trains client-facing staff in our Legal First Aid curriculum, builds legal navigation skills, and provides ongoing direct legal support via remote legal consultations and access to key tools and resources.
Legal First Aid trained navigators:
- Identify legal issues
- Access legal protections
- Provide justice-related support.
If you are interested in setting up navigator programs in your community, Legal Link also offers training and technical assistance. Please contact us for more information.
We capture navigators’ legal capability before and after the Legal First Aid training course, and offer follow-up support to our network of trained navigators through monthly newsletters and individual remote consultations.
We have partnered with more than 50 community-based organizations through our Legal First Aid Program. A few of our key partners are featured here.
“After Legal Link’s full day training, our staff reported a significant increase in their ability to identify and navigate their patients’ legal issues, which is vital to addressing social determinants of health.”
Merrill Buice, MPH, MCP, Director of Health Care Coverage & Access
San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium
“I have had multiple experiences with the civil legal system and was unaware of the resources available to me…I’ll be taking [the training] with me in my pocket everywhere.”
Legal First Aid Trained Navigator
“The structure and framework of the legal services world are so helpful – more so than legalese, it teaches us the lay of the land and how to approach it. Easily one of the best trainings I’ve been to.”
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