Indigenous Working Group
Terms of Reference
The purpose of the Working Group is to increase the availability of and access to civil and family law services for Indigenous people in Victoria. The Aboriginal Legal Needs Working Group will meet on a regular basis to consider the following:
- Mapping legal assistance sector activities for servicing Aboriginal clients’ civil and family law needs to help identify major gaps in service delivery
- Developing more coordinated and collaborative responses to addressing some of the gaps in civil and family law needs of Indigenous clients. Sharing information and agreeing to priority areas to this end.
- Improve promotion of and access of entry points to mainstream legal assistance sector services to compliment Aboriginal run legal services. Develop better pathways between VLA and Aboriginal run CLCs, community and government services working with Aboriginal people and generalist and specialist CLCs for Aboriginal people.
- Developing better coordinated and more targeted legal information and education information for Aboriginal clients on civil law and family law issues
- Implement strategies to improve access to pro bono services for Aboriginal people in Victoria for civil and family law matters
- Identify ways to improve access to cultural awareness training for legal assistance workers in Victoria.
Lead agency
Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service
Working Group members
- Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service Victoria
- Federation of Community Legal Centres
- Human Rights Law Centre
- Justice Connect
- Law Institute of Victoria
- Tarwirri – Indigenous Law Students and Lawyers Association of Victoria
- The Victorian Bar
- Victoria Legal Aid
- Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service
