Social Safety Net: How Nurses and Lawyers Collaborate to Support Mothers and Families

In this episode, we delve into a range of issues related to clients from the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium’s (NNCC) nursing initiatives, Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) and Nursing Legal Partnership (NLP), including pregnancy work discrimination, the absence of paid parental leave, challenges with accessing COVID-era unemployment assistance, and the impacts of these factors on maternal and child health. We hear from Rachel Mark and Susanna Greenberg, two legal aid attorneys, and public health nurse, Erin Blair about the complicated lives of the growing families they directly serve during the pandemic.

NNCC consists of various nursing initiatives including the Philadelphia Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) and Nursing Legal Partnership (NLP), which reach between 600-800 families impacted by economic and other social barriers. NFP links first-time low-income mothers with a nurse home visitor during pregnancy and until the baby turns two. Staff attorneys for the NLP are from HELP: MLP, the legal aid partner in our Nursing Legal Partnership. They are fully integrated into NNCC’s programs and services to help clients and nurses.

Both programs shifted services to telehealth through most of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our speakers highlight the critical gap in relief for clients who were pregnant but unemployed before the pandemic and who were not eligible for any of the pandemic-era unemployment expansions. At the same time, they highlight many other families who were able to receive assistance that ultimately helped them save money and take care of their new babies during the pandemic.