“To serve, to learn, to collaborate.” These are the three principles leading the Student-Run Free Clinic’s mission. Ever since October of 2011, the SRFC, located in the Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland, has provided free, acute care during walk-in hours on Saturdays. Now, the clinic is expanding its services to also include social work.

The new social work services will include help with Medicaid and other government-sponsored health insurance, as well as health education and mental health referrals. As with all students who work at the clinic, these students will be trained and supervised by licensed and practicing instructors.

The clinic is staffed by volunteer students from the university’s medical and nursing schools, who offer acute-care and work physicals for their uninsured patients. Volunteers for the new social work sector will be students from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.

This addition derives from the SRFC’s goal to not only help those that need medical care, but also to help students excel and get experience in their profession.