VLAF Newsletter August 2011

VLAF Update 2011

Welcome to the first Victorian Legal Assistance Forum (VLAF) Update. We will be sending out Updates on a regular basis.

The Victorian Legal Assistance Forum promotes collaboration and co-ordination in the delivery of legal services for socially and economically disadvantaged people in Victoria. It has a number of working groups and holds regular forums that are designed to:

VLAF's Main Forum executive is made up of representatives from each member organisation:

The Victorian Legal Assistance was set up in Feb 2009 and has recently secured part  funding from Legal Service Board to employ the VLAF project officer. Victoria Legal Aid hosts and part funds the project. Rachna Muddagouni, the Manager or Stakeholder Relationships from VLA manages the project with Simon Roberts, the VLAF Project Officer and Jennie Chainey,  Project Support Officer. All those who have been to forums and working groups this year have already met the new team and we hope to see more of you at VLAF events in the future.

Debt forum puts financial institutions on the spot

A pensioner goes to a bank for a loan of  $500 and comes away with a $10,000 credit card. The woman cannot pay and is pursued by the bank, the stress of which has an adverse impact on her health. A recipe for disaster, and a familiar scenario for those attending the first Victorian Assistance Forum seminar of 2011.  Seventy people attended “Challenging Perceptions! Understanding the lives of low income debtors” on 30 March in the Lionel Murphy Centre. There were representatives from banks and other financial lenders, insurance companies, VLA, community legal centres and financial counsellors. 

The two keynote speakers highlighted various aspects of the work of West Heidelberg CLC. VLA Board member and La Trobe academic, Mary Anne Noone, set the stage by showcasing her research on legal need, the complexity of clients’ lives and problems, and the type of service model needed to addresses these problems. This research links legal problems with mental health and general health issues and underlines the problem financial institutions  have in recovering debt from these clients. In many cases the debt recovery process exacerbates the health problems.

Denis Nelthorpe outlined the client profiles and outcomes from the bulk debt negotiation scheme that West Heidelberg ran recently. The scheme assisted 410 “judgement proof” clients by bundling the debt according to financial institution and then negotiating  on behalf of a group the clients all at once. Clients for the project were found through legal aid offices, legal centres and financial counselling agen­cies throughout Australia.  According to Denis, “Generally, creditors accepted the basic premise of the project – that the debtors permanently lacked the capacity to pay their debts.”

Next came our very own Q&A  panel discussion, with Fiona Guthrie, the Executive Director of the Australian Financial Counselling and Credit Reform Association, teasing out the issues with the help of the experts: Christian Mikula , Commonwealth Treasury; Tim Gough, ASIC; Colin Neave, Financial Ombudsman Services; Jane Pires Suncorp Group; Joel Townsend, VLA; Monique Hitter,  Legal Aid NSW; Hugh de Kretser,  Federation of Community Legal Centres and Peter Gartlan, Financial and Consumer Rights Council in Victoria

There was a lively exchange of views on what the best solution was to the problem of debt incurred by people who can never pay it back. It seems that the bulk debt negotiating scheme is slowly educating the financial sector on the true nature of the problems of these client groups, and edging the sector closer to the realisation that it will save time and money for the institutions and much worry and stress for debtors if there is some formal process to quickly make a call on abandoning futile quests for debt that will never be repaid.

The steps to family reunion

Providing legal help to reunite young refugees with their families

The Victorian Legal Assistance Forum (VLAF) launched its 'The steps to family reunion' report on Monday 2 May highlighting its project supporting young refugees who need legal help to bring their families to Australia.

The report recommends young refugees should be given:

A cross section of people from the community sector came to hear Julian Burnside AO, QC, a long time refugee advocate, share his thoughts on refugee policy.

Mr Burnside praised the project team, who spent the past 14 months helping as many children as they could with very few resources. He congratulated those who produced the report and said that despite the overwhelming evidence of what needs to be done, the report demonstrated the difficulty in getting government support.

Mr Burnside said it was interesting and depressing that the current government remains unconverted by the plight of refugees. He said their biggest hope for a successful future after enduring trauma and for many of them, the horror of war and losing loved ones, is if they are reunited with family as soon as possible.

The group heard earlier from Helen Yandell, project co-ordinator and director of Springvale Monash Legal Service, that out of almost 80 applications submitted on behalf of unaccompanied refugee minors to bring their families to Australia, only four had been approved. Several had been denied and there were many with still no outcome.

Mr Burnside reflected on this figure and said that the 1,040 children in detention today was not a very large number, and releasing them could be a fairly simple process. However political will is needed to right this situation.

He ended by saying that if there is to be any light at the end of the tunnel, there need to be people who will continue to fight for refugee children.

The Unaccompanied Humanitarian Minors project brought together legal and non-legal organisations to work on systemic and service delivery issues for marginalised young people in the community.

Legal Referral Services - the best way forward in Victoria

The future of legal referral in Victoria was the hot topic at the latest Victorian Legal Assistance Forum (VLAF) held at the Lionel Murphy Centre on 22 June.

More than 50 people heard keynote speaker Jane Pritchard from Law Access in NSW speak about the balance of legal to non-legal staff, conflict checks, liaison on referral information across the sector, funding, evaluating the program, training and record keeping.

Law Access NSW is a free government telephone assistance service for people who live in that state and works closely with all the major stakeholders in the sector in providing relevant legal information, advice and referral. It assists 198,000 callers per year.

A panel discussion also conversed about a variety of issues including databases, staff composition (lawyers, para-legals, volunteers), and even the difference between information and advice

The event gave the VLAF Legal Referral Working Group plenty to think about in its efforts to provide Victoria with a system of referral that is robust, works in most cases and, most importantly, helps in the early resolution of the legal problems of our clients.

VLAF CALD forum delivers showcase

Grandparents in Moreland, newly arrived families in Shepparton, young people in Dandenong and Flemington and refugees in Thailand. What do they have in common? All were the focus of the presentations at the VLAF CALD community legal education forum held on 20 July at Victoria Legal Aid.

The Forum, entitled “Early Intervention is the way to go”, was attended by over 60 participants who were taken through a range of community legal education projects. The projects showcased good practice and methodology in legal education by presenters from VLA, Moreland Community Legal Centre, Springvale Monash Legal Service, AMES, the Department of Justice, and National Legal Aid. The attendees came from state and federal government departments, migrant and welfare agencies, the health sector, the courts, the private legal sector and even interstate guest from NSW LAF and the Law and Justice foundation, along with VLAF members and many CLCs.

The keynote presentation was from Katie Fraser, formerly of Footscray CLC and now working on a National Legal Aid project, and Monica Ferrari, the manager of CLE at VLA. Katie Fraser, outlined her work with African clients that led to the development of a report on the African community’s legal problems. Katie undertook a Victoria Law Foundation Fellowship to look at legal education for refugees coming to Australia and finally the research findings all morphed into 'What's the law: Australian law for new arrivals'. This is an education kit to be used in English language programs run settlement education providers and could reach over 50,000 new arrivals. Monica Ferrari talked about the development of the resource and also about how VLA coming onboard to the project, and working with Katie and Footscray on these issues, had informed the CLE practice at VLA.

After the break came the Showcase with VLA CLE, Moreland CLC, Springvale Monash Legal Service, AMES Settlement Services and the Department of Justice Refugee Program demonstrated the fabulous work being done in the sector.

The forum was intense and intensive, but as people networked over lunch it was certain that people had new ideas and inspiration to take away with them, as well as some plans for collaboration in the future.

Legal Referral Working Group

The Legal Referral Working Group was one of the first working groups set up by VLAF.

The terms of reference for this group

To provide high quality information and referrals for people with legal problems in Victoria by:

Gregor Husper from PILCH is the new convenor.  After an excellent Forum in June (see report above) the WG has a lot on its plate as it looks more closely at a range of factors that will make the  legal referrals systems run more smoothly in Victoria. The group will further explore the following issues:

VLAF CALD Working Group

Similarly the VLAF CALD Working Group was set up in June 2009 following the first VLAF CALD forum.

The overall aim of the working group is to improve legal services to culturally and linguistically diverse communities by engaging with the legal and non-legal services.

This will be achieved through:

The WG was involved in the planning of the highly successful CLE forum. It has plans for Cultural Awareness training for the sector. Possibly followed by training on using interpreters and bi-lingual workers. This WG is also monitoring the work of the UHM group.

UHM Consortium

The UHM consortium members meets regularly to look at the status the casework that is being undertaken by the member organisations on behalf of the young people seeking family reunion. It is also looking at the next steps in a campaign to achieve more just outcomes in Federal Government decisions

VLAF Policy Working Group

The Policy Working Group has picked up momentum again. Their over all aims include:

The Policy Network has a showcase of work in the sector at each meeting. So far in 2011 we have had Tamar Hopkins talking about the police accountability project at Flemington and Kensington CLC and Toby Archer from the Tenants Union on their rooming house campaign.

Joy Acquaro from LIV  has agreed to be the convenor for this group and members have worked on a new Terms of Reference and a new plan for the next few years..

The next forum for this group, “So you have a policy, what do you do with it now”, will concentrate on capacity building for the sector around strategic campaigning and lobbying. Stay tuned for the publicity on this forum as there will be a stellar cast of speakers and some great workshops..

VLAF Disability Working Group

This working group has an overall aim to improve legal service access for people with disabilities.

This WG has been inviting different part of the justice system to it meetings to discuss the plans, policies and procedures that organisations have when dealing with people with a disability. So far we have talked to the Magistrates Court and VCAT, with plans for much more. The Group also hopes to work more closely with the Department of Justice through its Diversity Unit through regular consultation.

VLAF Disability WG is planning on providing one or two panel discussions as part of a VCOSS conference on the Charter in early 2012 in the area of disability and the law and the ageing population and the law.