The Hospice And Home Care Legal Project
The aims of the Hospice and Home Care Project are to strengthen the relationship between the medical and legal eldercare communities in Philadelphia and the surrounding five-county region of Southeastern Pennsylvania and to increase the quality of life of homebound, critically ill seniors by facilitating their access to legal services by training health care professionals to identify when their patients are in need of legal assistance. By conducting a survey of regional hospice and home care providers, we hope to identify areas for education about basic elder law concepts as they relate to their patients. We plan to use the survey results to develop legal training and a basic elder law primer for health care professionals in Pennsylvania. The project also incorporates direct services through SeniorLAW Center representation and by partnering with Villanova Law School’s award-winning Lawyering Together Program, which teams law students with attorneys to handle pro bono cases for low-income clients.
This project is made possible through the Borchard Foundation Center on Law and Aging fellowship program. For more than 10 years, the Borchard Foundation Center on Law and Aging has awarded at least two annual nationally competitive post-graduate legal fellowships to exceptionally talented and committed legal advocates for seniors. The Borchard Foundation Center partners with leading non-profit organizations such as SeniorLAW Center in furthering the Fellows’ professional development while undertaking an innovative community service project.
