VLSP works in collaboration with many programs in the greater Rochester area. These collaborations range from informal cross-referral arrangements to formal multidisciplinary service partnerships.

The Recovery Place collaborative helps people recovering from substance abuse move forward with their lives. Lead agency Catholic Family Center, a number of substance abuse treatment programs, VLSP and other legal services programs provide an array of services to help clients sustain sobriety, achieve self-sufficiency and reunite with their families. VLSP and our legal partners help clients with benefits and housing problems, domestic violence, debt and consumer issues, barriers to employment and reunification with children.

In the Families In Transition Project, VLSP, collaborates with Catholic Charities Community Services (CCCS) to help parents with HIV/AIDS make future care plans for their children. CCCS provides case management support to parents and future caregivers of the children. CCCS also provides counseling and recreation services to the HIV affected children and adolescents in the families.

VLSP's partnership with Empire Justice Center helps families with legal issues such as benefits, housing, guardianship, wills and advance directives. The goal is to create stability in these new families. VLSP also partners with other legal services programs in Monroe County, mobilizing and training private attorneys to meet the needs of special populations. In recent years, we have developed pro bono panels to help adults and children facing denial of SSI benefits (in collaboration with Empire Justice Center), tenants facing eviction and people with immigration problems (both in collaboration with the Legal Aid Society).

If you work in a human services agency in Monroe County and are interested in developing a collaborative project with VLSP, in which volunteer attorneys could be mobilized to help your clients, contact Sheila A. Gaddis at 585-232-3051 or sgaddis@wnylc.com.

VLSP can potentially access a wide variety of legal resources not only for individual representation, such as litigation, tax, trusts and estates and administrative law, but also transactional expertise in areas such as real estate, corporate law and financing to address, for example, community economic development projects.

In addition, VLSP can send a staff member to your staff meetings to provide in-service training on how to access free legal help in Monroe County. Contact Sheila A. Gaddis at 585-232-3051 or sgaddis@wnylc.com.