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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Medical Legal Partnerships Expanding in Minnesota

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Thursday, June 25, 2015   

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Just like many other external factors, legal issues can have a negative impact on people's health, and unique efforts to provide treatment for both at the same time are expanding in Minnesota.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation this week approved grants to support new Medical Legal Partnerships in Bemidji, Mankato and St. Paul.

Executive Director Carolyn Link says these partnerships work by integrating free legal services into a health care setting.

"The way it works is that doctors or nurses or dentists refer their patients to on-site attorneys, who can address those underlying social or economic problems that are complicating health and these problems do often have legal solutions," she explains.

Link says the issues that can be addressed through Medical Legal Partnerships include barriers around employment, family, government benefits and services, and housing.

One Medical Legal Partnership that began operations earlier this year with Foundation support involves CentraCare Health clinics in St. Cloud and Melrose, and Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid.

Supervising attorney Ralonda Mason says Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid has been able to help dozens of patients resolve their legal troubles.

"Patients report an improvement in stress levels and in concern about dealing with issues that they see that were impacting their health,” she relates. “And they're reporting overall an increase in their sense of health and healthfulness."

The CentraCare clinic in Melrose currently has an attorney on hand to consult with patients once a week, while the St. Cloud location has a lawyer on-site on a daily basis.





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