Children with Mental Health Disabilities

Mobilization for Justice attorneys work with medical staff at City hospitals to help children with mental health disabilities.

Mobilization for Justice serves children and adolescents with mental health disabilities through medical legal partnerships (MLP) with Bellevue, Harlem and Kings County Hospitals. MFJ attorneys work on site at the hospitals. The attorneys participate in clinical rounds with medical staff to identify legal issues that contribute to poor health outcomes.

The overarching objective of these partnerships is to ensure that families have access to the legal care they need to resolve health-harming legal problems that may impact a child’s recovery and to address related family needs. By resolving legal problems, families can focus on helping children to get well.

We provide legal advice and representation to these children and their families in the areas of special education, government benefits and immigration. Representation includes impartial hearings, suspension hearings, fair hearings, and disability hearings, as well as appropriate appeals to state and federal courts. We also advocate for these children at the Department of Education, the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, the Social Security Administration, and the Human Resources Administration, and help the families with other legal problems, such as eviction prevention.

Mobilization for Justice’s work for children with mental health disabilities receives pro bono support from attorneys at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, who represent children at individual education program (IEP) meetings to assist parents to address improper IEPs, or the absence or deficiency of educational services.

Watch a video on MFJ’s Children’s Medical Legal Partnerships.

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