Policy | Advocacy Resources
California LSC-funded Programs
- LawHelpCalifornia.org – California legal services web portal for client-oriented resources and referral info, and much more.
California Policy and Advocacy Organizations
National Legal and Policy Sites
- American Bar Association (ABA)
- American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – offers extensive links on civil liberties issues, including access to ACLU briefs and synopses of U.S. Supreme Court cases.
- America’s Second Harvest – prominent national leader on hunger issues.
- News Room – recent hunger-related press releases and news stories.
- Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law – good starting point for info on mental health, ADA and other disability issues.
- Benchmark Institute – preeminent training organization in California and nationally for the legal services and larger public-interest law community.
- BNA’s Web Watch Reading Room – fascinatingly useful site regularly updated with links to “government, industry, and academic resources on selected topics spanning the breadth of BNA coverage” – among others, government, housing and health issues.
- Center for Health Improvement
- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)
- 2009 Earned Income Tax Credit Outreach Kit – fact sheets on Earned Income Credit and Child Tax Credit refunds available to low- and moderate income workers; a full range of outreach strategy ideas that have been used successfully in local communities; posters, flyers, and envelope stuffers in English and Spanish; and the essential tax forms workers need to claim the credits.
- Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
- Child Care Law Center (CCLC)
- Children’s Defense Fund (CDF)
- Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) – prominent Berkeley-based national advocacy program with focus on disability rights.
- Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
- Families USA
- The Finance Project – latest incarnation of what used to be called the Welfare Information Clearinghouse, with somewhat improved content, organization and design offering links to low-income policy info and resources.
- Food Research and Action Center (FRAC)
- HealthCareCoach.com – strong consumer-oriented site (developed by the National Health Law Program) with national perspective on info about keeping health care costs down, coping with emergencies, dealing with denied health claims, and what people can do when they lose coverage.
- Idealist.org – links to 16,000 non-profit and volunteer organizations, a project of Action Without Borders.
- Institute for Research on Poverty @ Wisconsin
- Joint Center for Poverty Research @ Northwestern / Chicago
- Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured @ Kaiser Family Foundations – plethora of policy materials, including:
- Medicaid Resource Book – detailed, policy-oriented analysis of the Medicaid program: who it covers, what it covers, how it is financed, and how it is administered.
- Legal Services Corporation (LSC)
- Management Information Exchange (MIE) – clearinghouse for independent management training and resources for the legal services community.
- Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC)
- National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies (NACCRRA)
- National Center for Children in Poverty @ Columbia
- National Child Care Information Center (NCCIC) @ HHS
- National Center for Law and Economic Justice – New York-based center on TANF and other income-support programs.
- National Center for Youth Law (NCYL)
- National Center on Poverty Law – research backbone of the national legal services community, ever expanding website with links and content re poverty law issues.
- National Consumer Law Center (NCLC)
- National Employment Law Project (NELP)
- National Fair Housing Advocate
- National Health Law Program (NHeLP)
- National Housing Law Project (NHLP)
- National Immigration Law Center (NILC)
- National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA)
- National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)
- National Senior Citizens Law Center
- Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) – key resource for info re the relationship between race and poverty, and policies and practices addressing that relationship.
- Russell Sage Foundation
- State Policy Documentation Project – tracks policy choices on TANF and Medicaid in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, a joint project of Center for Law and Social Policy and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
- Urban Institute
- Women’s Law Initiative – state-specific legal information and an e-mail hotline for help with domestic violence issues.
