History of Women's Legal Aid
Establishment of Women's Legal Aid
Women's Legal Aid (WLA) commenced in 1995 and was officially launched on International Women's Day, 1996 by the then Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, the Honourable Denver Beanland, MLA.
In 1994 a Legal Aid Queensland Working Party was set up to examine issues raised in the "Equality Before the Law" discussion paper. The working party consulted with several commissioners, members of staff and representatives from a number of government and community organisations with the final paper being delivered to the commission in late 1994.
The working party found that Legal Aid Queensland policy changes had seriously eroded women's access to services. Budget constraints experienced by the Legal Aid Commission made it impossible to reinstate the range of grants of legal aid services in civil and family law matters which had been withdrawn over the last three years. Withdrawal of these services had sharply reduced the level of grants of aid available to women.
The need to develop and promote services which met women's needs was apparent. In early 1995, the Department of Justice and Attorney-General's Legal Aid Services Program approved Women's Legal Aid as a new initiative funded from a grant specifically provided by the Queensland Government.
In 2005, WLA celebrated its 10th anniversary with guests and staff members past and present.
Evaluation
In 1999, WLA was evaluated by an external project officer. Several recommendations were made about the ongoing service delivery and evaluation of WLA services. In 2002, WLA completed the implementation of those recommendations.
In 2004, an internal evaluation of WLA was completed and all recommendations were implemented.
Women and Legal Aid Reference Group
The Women and Legal Aid Reference Group provided a panel of expert opinion and a voice for key stakeholders in the community, including client groups, regarding issues for women and their access to Legal Aid Queensland (LAQ). Convened by WLA, the group met quarterly to discuss WLA and LAQ projects and any matters of concern to the group.
Membership of the group included LAQ stakeholders, external government and non-government organisations and individuals with an interest and expertise in women's access to legal aid.
The group ceased to exist in 2003.
Members included:
LAQ stakeholders
* Family law conferencing program coordinator
* Grants Division representative
* Integrated Indigenous Strategy Unit coordinator
* Rural and Regional Strategy Unit coordinator
Government organisations
* Office for Women
Non-government organisations
* Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Legal and Advocacy Service
* Immigrant Women's Support Service
* Women's Legal Service
* Sisters Inside
* North Queensland Women's Legal Service
* Gold Coast Domestic Violence Service
* Working Against Violence Support Service
Terms of reference were:
1. To provide a panel of expert opinion to Legal Aid Queensland on issues related to women and their access to the legal system and Legal Aid Queensland.
2. To provide advice and recommendations to Legal Aid Queensland regarding the delivery of services to women.
3. To monitor and review Legal Aid Queensland services to women.
4. To provide a voice for stakeholders and client groups with regards to issues of women and their access to the legal system and Legal Aid Queensland.
5. To provide input into the broad strategic direction of Legal Aid Queensland around issues which impact on women and their access to Legal Aid Queensland.
Rural Women's Awareness Project
The Rural Women's Awareness Project was funded by the Legal Aid Queensland Board in January 2001. The project was developed by Women's Legal Aid and the Women's Justice Network.
Broadly the project's aim was to increase and improve the access of rural women through the pathway of legal service delivery within Legal Aid Queensland.
Project objectives were:
1. To raise awareness of Legal Aid Queensland in rural and regional areas
2. To increase numbers of women accessing Legal Aid Queensland
3. To ensure more appropriate referrals to Legal Aid Queensland
4. To explore the viability of delivering legal community education to remote locations using video-conferencing technology.
The project proposal was comprised of five parts:
1. Development of information packages for Filipino women living in rural communities
2. Monthly media releases to rural and regional media outlets
3. Training Package for intermediaries (responsibility for this was with WJN and a consultant)
4. International Women's Day Family Law Update for rural and regional community agencies.
5. Training of preferred suppliers in four regional areas around the Legal Aid Queensland Best Practice Guidelines for working with clients affected by violence
6. Identifying the most effective role for Legal Aid Queensland in the provision of services for women affected by domestic violence in rural and regional areas.
7. Other activities that the project worker assisted with during the course of the project, but not included in the proposal, were the establishment of Women's Legal Aid Rural and Regional Reference Group and Community Access Points training in Mt Isa.
Over the four months and across all sub-projects, contact was made with 48 regional and rural towns and 132 different community based agencies.
The positive response to the project in all areas of the state communicated the isolation felt and the limited resources available to community agencies accessed by women in regional and rural Queensland. Community agencies demonstrated motivation to work collaboratively towards meeting the legal needs of women, and were able to identify strategic opportunities for this to occur. They expressed the importance and value of Legal Aid Queensland's leadership as key in the ongoing progress and improvement of legal situations of women living in rural and regional Queensland.
Diversity Counts Project
Following the release of the report "Rural Women's Legal Awareness project" Legal Aid Queensland committed to implementing recommendations from the report.
Women's Legal Aid was responsible for the implementation of two specific recommendations relating to Filipino women's access to legal services, particularly in the areas of Mount Isa and Mackay.
The Rural Women's Legal Awareness project found that Filipino women in particular were at risk of being over represented as victims of domestic homicide due to "the lack of information and awareness about their legal rights, and the services and legal options to them, due to unfamiliarity with the legal system lack of multilingual legal information strategies which target them".
The final report recommended the development of resources with basic legal information about the Queensland legal system and about issues related to domestic violence. It also recommended the development and implementation of cross cultural training, concentrating on specific issues for Filipino women, for Legal Aid Queensland regional offices, including staff and preferred suppliers.
Women's Legal Aid developed a set of resources including a pocket pack and leaflet with specific information about women's legal rights and aspects of the legal system that maybe relevant to Filipino women and women in general. This followed on from targeted consultations with Filipino women in the Toowoomba, Mackay, Mount Isa and Brisbane regions prior to the development of these resources.
These resources are available to download from the Publications area.
Women's Legal Aid conducted cross cultural training with staff at the Mackay and Mount Isa regional offices. These sessions were well attended by Legal Aid Queensland staff and received positive feedback.
The resources were also translated and published in Tagalog, English, Vietnamese and Mandarin. During 2004, the Integrated Indigenous Strategy Unit at Legal Aid Queensland adapted the information in the pocket pack and leaflet to suit the needs of that community and translated it into Aboriginal English.
In 2005, Women's Legal Aid won a Domestic Violence Prevention Award at the for the resources during Domestic and Family violence Prevention Month.
