Introduction by Croakey: A “quiet revolution” is taking place across Australia that involves community lawyers moving out of their offices and into hospitals and community health settings to collaborate with health services and their patients to address unmet legal needs.
That’s according to Health Justice Australia, a not-for-profit that works to support the growth of health justice partnerships to connect healthcare and legal assistance so people can access help when and where they need it.
“Many people experience problems that affect their health that cannot be fixed by healthcare alone. For issues like poor quality housing, fines and debt, violence, abuse and neglect, the solutions sit outside the health system,” says the organisation’s website.
“By working together, health and legal services can address the complex problems in people’s lives in ways they never could alone.”
Health Justice Australia – @HealthJusticeAu – took the reins of @WePublicHealth last month, and their tweets are summarised below, including three key recommendations from their submission to next week’s Federal Budget.
Health Justice Australia writes:
Potentially one of the toughest partnering principles to genuinely build is equity, and with it the ability of individuals, disciplines and services to name, disrupt and use power.
Collaborative governance can help strengthen and maintain relationships between partnering services and practitioners.
At its heart, health justice partnerships is a flexible, place-based, person-centred approach to care and systems change. Here’s what that actually looks like on the ground.
There is so much amazing partnering work happening internationally. Some we can really get behind to support partnership for health equity and justice are:
Wondering what you actually do to more effectively partner for change? In the context of health justice partnerships, @HealthJusticeAu has developed a raft of resources, including this foundational guide.
On 16 February, we held our very first Health Justice Conversations event, a fantastic discussion about legal need as a social determinant of health. 
Couldn’t make it? Register to catch up with the recording and access our upcoming events in the series.
Curious to find out more about building an effective health justice partnership and the range of support we can provide? Let’s talk! You can contact us through our website or at healthjustice@healthjustice.org.au
Subscribe to our mailing list to receive regular updates from Health Justice Australia with our latest research, upcoming events, articles, webinars and podcasts all in one place!
Watch our webinar with @IFICInf on disrupting health inequity and injustice through partnership, and see upcoming events.
Budget priorities
The Health Justice Australia budget submission contains three key proposals to improve health, justice and wellbeing for individuals and families with complex needs.
Meanwhile…
See Croakey’s archive of stories from @WePublicHealth guest tweeters this year. Please contact @MelissaSweetDr interested in guest tweeting for a week.
