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Supporting non-legal agencies

[It depends on] whether or not their youth service provider is linked in and understanding of their legal needs through the system. So again, legal education of the youth workers is fundamental in that sense.⁸⁹

Stakeholders made a couple of suggestions to improve the ability of non-legal service providers to provide support to clients with a mental illness who have a legal problem. A few non-legal service providers commented that if they were going to help their clients with legal problems, then they needed to be able to access legal information and advice.⁹⁰ A couple of non-legal service providers commented that they would like access to a centralised call centre that provides legal information and advice:⁹¹

I think that they should have a legal call centre that can offer quick advice, like a hotline. Where you can ring and say “I have this person, and this has happened, and that happened, can you either direct me to where I need to go, or is there another way of dealing with it other than through the court system.”⁹²

Two non-legal service providers and one roundtable attendee suggested that it would be useful to be able to access a service that could provide information about legal referral networks so that they can better support their clients who have legal problems.⁹³

Several stakeholders also stressed the importance of building relationships between non-legal and legal service providers.⁹⁴ Such a relationship may mean that non-legal services are more comfortable calling a legal service to ask about potential legal issues. For example, Maroubra Mental Health Centre and Shopfront work together to assist disadvantaged young people. The availability of a service like Shopfront allows social workers and counsellors from Maroubra to have access to information about legal issues and the legal process. It also allows Shopfront solicitors to benefit from support provided by Maroubra Mental Health Centre to the client, through the legal process.

Most of our clients are referred by youth services or mental health services. If we get a referral from one of these community centres we know it’s a serious referral, and they think they will need extra help through the process. We haven’t refused one yet, I don’t think.⁹⁵

As part of their commitment to community legal education and as a way of raising their profile in the local community, both Marrickville and Kingsford Legal Centres run a program of legal workshops for community workers. Subjects covered include victim’s compensation, legal problem-solving and referral, social security, anti-discrimination laws, tenancy, powers of attorney and enduring guardianships, family law/domestic violence and employment. These workshops are in recognition of the need for relationship building between legal and non-legal service providers and of the latter’s need for legal education in order to better assist their clients with their legal problems.⁹⁶