| Last year, NWLS joined other
legal services programs in the Commonwealth in a project
designed to assist clients as they strive for economic
self-sufficiency. The cooperative effort increased the
number of public benefits specialists across the state,
trained them in areas of the law pertinent to public
benefits, coordinated their work, and integrated them within
the current advocacy network of specialists in regional
programs and specialty projects.
The Pennsylvania Public Benefits Project provides funding
to enable a full-time advocate (paralegal) at NWLS to work
on behalf of low-income clients throughout our 10-county
region. In addition to direct representation and counsel for
clients, the public benefits specialist is also the “point
person” for extensive community outreach and legal education
activities that form an important part of the project.
The overall goals of the initiative are threefold: to
make Pennsylvania’s welfare system among the most
humanitarian in the nation; to enable clients to get all of
the public benefits to which they are entitled; and to help
clients move out of poverty and toward self-sufficiency.
Jeannine Lawton-Knepper joined NWLS in July 2004 as our
public benefits specialist, and she brings experience in
family services to her current position in our organization.
Her responsibilities are an important part of our commitment
to the low-income community we serve, and a way to assist
individuals and families to improve the quality of their
lives in northwestern Pennsylvania.
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