The Tennessee Justice Center is a non-profit, public interest organization that advocates for Tennesseans in need. Since 1996, TJC has stood with families in their efforts to access crucial necessities such as health care, long-term services and supports, nutrition assistance and financial security. TJC serves clients in all 95 Tennessee counties from its office in Nashville.
TJC works for social justice in three ways:
- TJC serves over a thousand individual clients without charge each year. In deciding which cases to accept, TJC gives priority to those in which it appears that the problem may affect many people. We hope that, if we gain success for the individual client, it might help others in the same circumstances.
- TJC trains and provides technical assistance to clients, professionals and organizations. Our goal is to provide the information and skills that will enable them to overcome barriers to services and opportunities, either for themselves or for others. They give us feedback that, like our individual client cases, provides valuable insights about systemic problems affecting Tennesseans in need.
- Working with clients and others, TJC advocates for systemic reforms that improve public programs and policies, and that benefit large numbers of people. We pursue such reforms through lawsuits (including class actions), legislative lobbying, participation in coalitions and activities to educate the public. TJC’s systems reform advocacy is grounded in the rigorous analysis of data and persuasive presentation of facts. Whenever possible, we empower clients to tell their own stories, often garnering coverage in state and national media. Those stories often make a human connection that moves people, overcoming differences in class, race or politics.
Because public programs like TennCare and SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) are so important to so many families, much of TJC’s work has focused on those programs, and on helping them serve Tennesseans more effectively. That focus has paid off, enabling TJC to win $2 billion in health care and $500 million in food assistance for Tennessee families. Our advocacy has also strengthened the legal rights of millions of Tennesseans, protecting their rights to challenge the actions of government agencies or contractors that harm their access to health care or public benefits.
TJC is especially proud to work with clients with disabilities, and with partners like the Tennessee Disability Coalition and Disability Rights Tennessee. Our successes advocating with and for people with disabilities have included:
- A class action settlement which led to the creation of the TennCare CHOICES program and increased access to home and community-based services as alternatives to nursing homes;
- a landmarkruling that upheld the right of Medicare home health patients to enforce federal quality of care rules;
- collaboration with the Tennessee Disability Coalition in a successful campaign to establish TennCare’s Katie Beckett coverage for children with special health care needs;
- A court ruling that reinstated coverage for individuals with severe mental illness who had been wrongfully deprived of TennCare;
- A class action order requiring TennCare to meet federal standards for the care of children with special health and behavioral health needs.
TJC is currently focusing on the caregiver crisis that is gravely affecting the quality and availability of services for so many people, both at home and in health care facility settings. In a lawsuit involving TennCare and the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD), TJC represents enrollees in the DIDD Waiver program who are unable to receive services authorized in their support plans, because the program does not have enough providers to meet enrollees’ needs. We are also working with the Tennessee Coalition for Better Aging, the Tennessee Disability Coalition, and others to promote principles for building a more responsive and resilient system of long-term services and supports for Tennessee. Immediate priorities include persuading TennCare to reimburse family caregivers for the care of loved ones with disabilities and to further pay and working conditions for professional caregivers.
The team at TJC is grateful for the privilege of working with people from all backgrounds to make our state a more just and inclusive home for all Tennesseans.
For more information on the Tennessee Justice Center visit their webstie at tnjustice.org.