Q&A with Donita Parrish

Donita Parrish, Esq.

Title:  Senior Attorney
Organization:  Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinatti
Years in Legal Practice: 8
MLP Affiliation:  Cincinnati Child Health-Law Partnership
How Were You Introduced to MLP? Elaine Fink, Cincinnati Managing Attorney Children's Advocacy, Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio, LLC

Q: What appealed to you originally about working as part of a medical-legal partnership?

A: Having worked in legal aid before I came to the medical-legal partnership, it was obvious to me that these types of collaborations can fill in gaps where services need to be delivered. I’ve worked on other collaborations that our legal aid society has that have been very successful in meeting our clients’ needs, so this was an easy sell for me.

Q: What are some of the benefits for you of working as part of a medical-legal partnership?

A: What has been very powerful is seeing the direct impact the legal work has on families. Before, sometimes I would work on a case and then close the case and then it was gone. I might never hear about the family again them again unless they had another problem. Through the medical-legal partnership, our communication with our medical partners lets me see how having resolved a legal problem is helping the family in an ongoing way in their life.

The partnership also lets us have more long-term relationships with the families themselves. We’re seeing some of the families again, because they stop by our office at the clinic during a health care visit. If there are new issues that have come up, we can work with the family to address those problems that are impacting their children’s health.

Q: Is there a particular family you’ve worked with recently that illustrates the power of your medical-legal partnership?

Earlier this year, a mom at the clinic was asking for medication for her three-year-old son to help control his behavior. He was in a public preschool, and the school principal had told the mom that he could not come back to school unless he had medication. That’s not a circumstance where the doctor’s going to say, “Okay, if the school wants him to have medication, we’ll give him medication.” The doctor has to determine what the appropriate medical care is for that child .

The mom was seeing it as a medical problem. The way she was going to solve it was to go to the doctor, get the medication, tell the school he had the medication and send him back to school. The doctor saw that there was a medical issue, and she referred the son to behavioral health services, but she also recognized that there was a legal problem with the school . I worked with the family, the school and the behavioral health provider to get the child’s Individualized Education Plan revised, with addtional and more appropriate special education services in place for him. He was able to finish the school year successfully and without medication.

Q: How does a case like that reflect the reasons why you do the work you do?

A: I went to law school because I was interested in children’s issues and wanted to be in a position to address some of those issues. The medical-legal partnership has given me an opportunity to address legal issues and see the impact of that on health.

In that case a child with a developmental delay was able to continue having preschool services. Understanding the impact that quality preschool services have on children’s ability to learn and their success in school in the future, I believe our work had a real impact.