Health justice partnerships (HJPs) in the Australian context are collaborations to embed legal help in healthcare services and teams.
HJP is a service model to improve health and wellbeing for: individuals, through direct service provision in places that they access; people and communities vulnerable to complex need, by redesigning integrated service responses around client needs and capability; and vulnerable populations through advocacy for systemic change to policies which affect the social determinants of health.
This paper draws upon a recent census of HJPs to profile the Australian health justice landscape. It then discusses the individual and systems outcomes anticipated for HJPs and opportunities for work in collaboration with public health researchers to explore this potential. The paper also explores HJPs as an opportunity to define, assess and share the value proposition of legal help beyond the access to justice frame: to ask how legal assistance contributes to health and wellbeing as part of a broader human service network.
