The Villers Fellowship for Health Care Justice was created in 2005 by Phillippe Villers, Founder and President of Families USA, to inspire and develop the next generation of health care justice leaders. The goals of the Villers Fellowship Program are three-fold:

1. To help achieve Families USA’s goal of guaranteed, quality, affordable health care for all of us;
2. To develop a network of young leaders who share a passion for social and health care justice; and
3. To inspire Villers Fellows to continue to work for health care justice throughout their lives.

Villers Fellows will be given the opportunity to work on a variety of health care justice issues during their year-long tenure. They will also be exposed to different advocacy strategies, including producing analytic reports, disseminating effective messages through the media, successful coalition building, and e-advocacy techniques. The Fellow will also develop an understanding of the federal legislative process.

The Villers Fellow works as a full-time policy analyst in Families USA’s Health Policy Department. The Fellowship is based in the Families USA office in Washington, D.C. and is designed to provide the fellow with a national perspective on health care justice work.  The program will afford the Fellow the opportunity to learn about a range of health care justice issues. The Villers Fellow’s principal responsibilities include conducting primary and secondary research on a range of health care issues, including Medicaid, Medicare, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), prescription drugs, and the private insurance market, as well as writing and contributing to publications that are relevant to current health policy debates. For more information on The Villers Fellowship for Health Care Justice, please see the Families USA Web site at http://www.familiesusa.org/villers.

The fellowship will last one year, from August 2012 through July 2013, and Fellows will receive a compensatory package that includes an annual salary of approximately $35,000 and excellent health care benefits. One Villers Fellow is selected each year.