NIU College of Law Health Advocacy Blog

On Tuesday, March 27, 2018, the NIU Health Advocacy Clinic will host its annual Power of Attorney (POA) Day. This event provides the guests of PADS and TLC as well as the general Hesed House Community an opportunity to complete a Power of Attorney for Healthcare, free of charge. What is a Power of Attorney for Healthcare? A Power of Attorney is a document that allows you to designate a person of your choice, called a health care agent, to make health care decisions for you in the event that you are unable. For example, if an accident left you in a coma, then your healthcare agent would decide on your behalf whether life-saving measures should be used and if so, which ones. The most important part of picking an agent is ensuring you select someone that knows what your medical wishes are and that you trust will implement your wishes in case you are unable. A Power of Attorney is an important document to have for oneself. This document trumps any influence of family members, fri...

Prior to this first day meeting my Health Advocacy Clinic (“HAC”) client, the only experience I had with client interviewing was at my graduate assistantship. However, my interactions in those interviews was limited since my supervisor was the lead investigator role. That said, I was finally able to take the “lead” when interviewing my HAC client, and I was truly looking forward to the experience. Before meeting my HAC client, I did a couple things to prepare. One, I made a script of main discussion points that I wanted to be sure to bring up during the interview.  Two, I worked to memorize the first 20-30 seconds of my script so that my interview would have a “natural flow.” This would allow me to quickly build rapport with my client. The day finally came to meet my client and my nerves were getting the best of me in anticipation of his arrival. Ironically, my client had to cancel the meeting and rescheduled for the following week, so I used the additional time to conti...

October 20th was a fairly busy day at the NIU Health Advocacy Clinic. The afternoon started with an interdisciplinary presentation about the roles of social workers from Neil McMenamin, Associate Director of Hesed House. Listening to him describe how faith and the Church led him to help others through social work really inspired me. He also described how he grew up on the east side of Aurora where poverty was not as prevalent as it is by where Hesed is located. This comment made me realize how we can sometimes forget that poverty exists where we least expect. Prior to working at the clinic, I had a much different perception of Aurora. I certainly did not view Aurora as an uber-wealthy suburb like Kenilworth or Wilmette but rather a typical, middle-class Midwestern suburb. The first thing that always came to mind when I thought about Aurora was the Chicago Premium Outlets shopping center which even has a Versace outlet. Homelessness was the last thing that came to mind when t...

The Health Advocacy Clinic offers a new experience every day. I’ve been working with a client since I’ve been at the clinic. I was there for the initial interview. I’ve requested medical records on the client’s behalf. I’ve charted most of the client’s medical records. I’ve even had the client stop in a few times to sign releases or answer a few questions. However, all of these experiences have been shared with the clinic’s legal team. Even though I’ve been a student in the clinic for a while, I had yet to meet with a client on my own. The clinic is set up so we students don’t typically see clients solo, but given the busy nature of the clinic on one particular Friday, I met with client by myself. Going back to my second day at the clinic, and prior to meeting this client for first time, I had been told generally how this client handles meetings, along with some specific anecdotes. The tales weren’t the greatest. Being my second day, I was curious as to how the intake interview wou...

The date was June 27 th , 2017. It was my first experience at Hesed House in Aurora, Illinois. To say that I was excited would be an understatement.  I had been in the clinic seminar for approximately one hour, and I was ready to get to work. Not to work for pay, because I chose the unpaid Health Advocacy Clinic for the summer over a paid internship at a law office. I was ready to go to work, helping others who may not be able to hire private attorneys. I chose my passion. The beginning of my experience and one that I will never forget was my tour of Hesed House’s overnight shelter and transitional living quarters. The tour started in the lobby of Hesed House where a friendly volunteer answered phone calls and greeted guests and ended in the bright room of the Transitional Living Community where families sign up to spend quality time with their children in a warm and playful environment. I entered this experience and environment with an open mind and really tried to come with no assump...

NIU Law students participating in the Health Advocacy Clinic (HAC) typically spend one or two semesters at the clinic. One of HAC’s goals is to provide law students with practical legal experience during their time in law school. The high law student turnover means that the HAC Director must be creative to ensure that students have the opportunity to work on client cases as much as possible during their short time at the HAC. When students arrive at the beginning of the semester, client cases, usually involving the denial of Social Security disability benefits, are at various stages of development. Some cases are just beginning while others are weeks away from the long-awaited Social Security administrative law judge hearing. How is this high law student turn over and case development dilemma resolved? It is solved by assigning students to new, ongoing, or concluding client cases within days of arrival at the clinic and working to quickly prepare students to perform their assigned task...

It was Friday morning and I was waiting for a client to come fill out her Power of Attorney (POA) for Health Care. I was really excited for this because I had not had the opportunity to do an initial client interview yet, and this would be my first time assisting a client with completing a POA. I was also grateful I was able to have the experience of doing one, since POA Day was Wednesday,and I am scheduled Fridays at the clinic. Going into the situation I was very nervous. I had never done a POA before and I reviewed the POA documents, but actually doing interviews is always different than preparing for them. I definitely have seen that play out a lot this semester. You can prepare all you want for client interactions, but often they go nothing like you planned. Going into this experience I expected the client to have a lot of questions. This document is for long- term planning, and the population we work with at the Health Advocacy Clinic often does not have a lot of long-term plans ...

My second day at the clinic, I met with a client. She became emotional when discussing the passing of a loved one, even though it had happened a while ago. Having had a similar experience recently, and a much different reaction, I was shocked that she reacted the way she did. My oldest sister died this past spring. When it happened, it was almost the furthest thing from my mind. I was preparing for exams. I wasn’t sleeping well. I was just trying to get through one day at a time. On the day my sister passed, I was still awake at 5 a.m. when my mother called me. I had no idea why she was calling me so early. Through tears, my mom told me about her death. I can’t even say it was unexpected. My focus was on the exam I had to take in four hours. I’m fairly certain I even said something about still going to take the exam and not bothering going to Michigan to see my sister, albeit just her body, one last time. I ended up rescheduling the exam and going to Michigan, but my initial reaction w...

The Health Advocacy Clinic (HAC) is a medical-legal partnership with Aunt Martha’s Health and Outreach Center as well as Hesed House, the second largest homeless shelter in Illinois. Most of our clients are homeless. The ones who are not consist of low-income members of the community who struggle with poverty. Whether our clients stay in public housing or at Hesed House, they share one thing in common: their lives are stressful in a way that many of us cannot begin to comprehend. HAC clients frequently experience stress trying to secure basic needs such as shelter, food, and safety. The effects of such stress can have long-term effects on their bodies and overall health. “The longer the stress lasts, the worse it is for both your mind and body.” 1 Many of our clients are considered chronically homeless, which requires that they have been homeless for at least a year or have been homeless at least four times within the last three years and have a disability, and have therefore been sub...

“James” is client of the Health Advocacy Client who was recently awarded SSI benefits. This includes both a monthly payment and a larger award of back payments which will be paid out over several installments. As the Associate Director of Housing and Supportive Services at Hesed House, I act as his case manager. James began staying at Hesed House in April 2012. He became a Lighthouse client in December 2014 which means that he lives in an apartment in the Aurora community as part of our long-term, permanent supportive living program. When he was staying at Hesed, James was always getting sick because of his many health conditions. He is doing better now that he is staying in his own apartment. He even comes back and volunteers at Hesed when he physically can. Also, he’s very active in the Lighthouse community, especially by acting as a mentor for the younger residents which is beneficial for us as well. One of James’s goals since I first met him when he started staying at Hesed was to ...

Over the past several months, I have had the opportunity to briefly meet a number NIU HAC clients.  One Friday morning, I noticed that there was an older lady, with a piece of luggage, just sitting in the woods.  Later that day, I realized that this person was one of our clients and felt sad that she was sitting in the woods, all by herself on a cold Friday morning.  During our meeting with that client, and other clients since, I have been impressed with the fact that our clients are intelligent, personable, and capable.  In addition, I have come to the conclusion that we, as a society, could be doing so much more to help those who are homeless and in need.  We should explore how we can empower our clients to take advantage of all of their talents.  Specifically, there are ways to leverage technology and to teach practical skills that are in demand, such as bookkeeping and coding. Almost everyone in America has attended school (at least through the second year of high school).  In addi...

During my time working at the Health Advocacy Clinic over the summer, our group of three students was able to serve lunch in the cafeteria to guests in the PADS program. The cafeteria was pretty full; there were a lot of guests. Looking at the tables, I saw some guests who looked exhausted with their heads down. Still there were others attentive who ready to eat and very talkative. Then there were a few who sat alone in silence. We were met by a woman who worked in the kitchen and seemed to be running the show. She immediately asked, “Which one of you has the strongest stomach?” We all sort of looked wearily at each other and finally someone asked why. She informed us it was because that day, they were serving “delicious” pigs’ feet. The woman explained to us that a very nice large donation had come in and there were also specific requests for pigs’ feet. Right away, one of the other students stood up and said he would serve them, at which time I let out a sigh of relief, ran to the ch...

In July, I went to Oak Brook for a Social Security hearing. I was representing a client whose case I had been working on all summer. In preparation for the hearing, I wrote a pre-hearing memo, drafted questions to ask my client as well as the vocational expert, wrote an opening statement, and submitted medical records, support letters, and a pre-hearing memo to Social Security. I had a lot of expectations going into the hearing. First, after talking to someone who had been in front of the same judge for a separate hearing, I assumed the judge was going to be friendly. I had also learned that the format of Social Security hearings varies between the different judges. I was, therefore, planning to give an opening statement. I anticipated that the judge and I would ask the client and the vocational expert questions. I also understood that Social Security judges do not make decisions immediately following the hearing. I did not think we would find out whether my client was approved for six...

On August 29, 2016, Assistant Professor Michelle Lilly from NIU’s Department of Psychology gave a presentation to our HAC class on “Working with Clients Suffering from PTSD and Mental Illness.” She offered a lot of valuable information concerning this topic and shared some of her experiences throughout her career. In addition to her presentation, our class also read two articles concerning PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] and mental illness. Both the presentation and the readings were enlightening and opened my eyes to my own misconceptions concerning the topic. Going into the presentation, I was somewhat prepared because the readings had broken down the basics of what qualifies as PTSD. However before reading the articles, I was under the impression that PTSD was mainly used to refer to symptoms experienced by war veterans or people in similar situations. During Professor Lilly’s presentation, she gave a little more insight on the qualifications for PTSD. One of the things she sp...

Today I visited my client with my supervisor and a Spanish interpreter so I could meet him and update him on the progress of his case. I introduced myself to my client and shook his hand. Via the interpreter, I explained that I was the new student attorney assigned to his case and how I was in the process of collecting his updated medical information to send to Social Security. I told him that part of how I planned to accomplish this was to schedule a meeting with his social worker. I explained that once I received all of the needed information, I would send a memorandum about his case to Social Security with the goal of having his case reviewed and approved without needing to wait for a hearing. Acknowledging his frustration with the rotation of student attorneys on his case each semester, I told him that I hoped that I would be the last student attorney he would have to see. I asked him if he had any questions. He did not but stated that he wanted to be present at the meeting with hi...

During both semesters of my 3L year, I was a student attorney at the Health Advocacy Clinic in Aurora and I have to say that being at the HAC was one of the best parts of law school because I could finally put into practice everything I had learned. I had my own clients and everything! My guided tour of Hesed House, the second largest homeless shelter in Illinois, was also the first time I had ever stepped foot inside a homeless shelter. Parts of my experience at the HAC were heart-wrenching, but upon later reflection (which is critical to the clinical experience), I found that each day was satisfying in its own right. So when I learned that an AmeriCorps VISTA position opened up at the HAC, I leapt at the chance. The period between finishing studying for the bar exam and landing your first job is beyond stressful even though you suddenly have tons of time on your hands. The fact that I knew I’d be returning to the HAC to work in a community I had become familiar with helped the transi...

The spring semester 2016 is coming to a close for the student attorneys at Northern Illinois University College of Law’s Health Advocacy Clinic (“HAC”). As this semester quickly comes to an end, I spent some time reflecting on my time at HAC.   During the semester, we are required to complete Critical Experience Assessments  (“CEAs”) that act as an outlet for us, as students, to process the situations, people, and/or experiences we come across. Recently, I looked back at the first CEA I wrote, after my first week working with Hesed House, Aunt Martha’s and HAC and I wanted to share a portion of it with you.   “This CEA, I want to talk about my first week at the HAC. Specifically, my second day there – which included a tour of Hesed House. The tour started with a meeting in the Hesed House library, and then we went on a guided tour. During the tour we saw the PADS sleeping area, the locker section, the cafeteria, kitchen, and the Transitional Living Community (TLC) where many c...

Perspective changes everything. A statement that I think most people are aware of but can never fully appreciate without really seeing things from a different perspective. One of the biggest lessons that I have learned since working at the Health Advocacy Clinic is what a “break” in life can really mean. For me, from my perspective, it is going on vacation or having a week off of school. For many of the residents here at Hesed House, a break in life seems to take on a different form or a different meaning, or perhaps more accurately, a different perspective. From the perspective of residents here, I think they see breaks often as things that I take for granted. They are happy to have food, water and shelter. So from their perspectives, I think something like hanging out with friends or watching a movie can constitute a break for them. I see these things as common-day occurrences, which looking at it from their perspectives, gives me a new-found appreciation. I really have got to see th...

It was Friday morning and I was waiting for a client to come fill out her Power of Attorney (POA) for Health Care. I was really excited for this because I had not had the opportunity to do an initial client interview yet, and this would be my first time assisting a client with completing a POA. I was also grateful I was able to have the experience of doing one, since POA Day was Wednesday, and I am scheduled Fridays at the clinic. Going into the situation I was very nervous. I had never done a POA before and I reviewed the POA documents, but actually doing interviews is always different than preparing for them. I definitely have seen that play out a lot this semester. You can prepare all you want for client interactions, but often they go nothing like you planned. Going into this experience I expected the client to have a lot of questions. This document is for long- term planning, and the population we work with at the Health Advocacy Clinic often does not have a lot of long-term plans...

Power of Attorney It was Friday morning and I was waiting for a client to come fill out her Power of Attorney (POA) for Health Care. I was really excited for this because I had not had the opportunity to do an initial client interview yet, and this would be my first time assisting a client with completing a POA. I was also grateful I was able to have the experience of doing one, since POA Day was Wednesday, and I am scheduled Fridays at the clinic. Going into the situation I was very nervous. I had never done a POA before and I reviewed the POA documents, but actually doing interviews is always different than preparing for them. I definitely have seen that play out a lot this semester. You can prepare all you want for client interactions, but often they go nothing like you planned. Going into this experience I expected the client to have a lot of questions. This document is for long- term planning, and the population we work with at the Health Advocacy Clinic often does not have a lot ...