Multicultural Action Plan

Delivered

• The Legal Aid Queensland Workforce Action Plan 2024–25 includes several actions to support increased diversity through recruitment, including:
  • Building panel capability with a focus on attracting and managing candidates from diversity groups
  • Increasing our understanding of the experience of diversity groups to develop effective strategies to increase representation.
• Legal Aid Queensland’s (LAQ) specialist recruitment team/service, comprising 4 positions (previously 1 role), assists panels to recruit and select staff in the most effective, efficient, and fair way possible, considering LAQ’s desire to achieve a diverse workforce. This team works with business areas to ensure panels recruit vacancies in ways which facilitate diverse applicant pools and ensures that selection practices are aligned to assessing the suitability of all candidates whilst minimising unconscious bias of selection panels.
• Online and in-person recruitment and selection training is offered to LAQ staff. This training is compulsory for panel members and must be completed prior to staff being selected as a panel member. The training ensures that panels are aware of the requirements of the legislation and Directive, are aware of unconscious bias and the benefits of workforce diversity.
• Reduction in barriers in the recruitment process through promotion of alternatives such as removing written applications, introduction of reasonable adjustments, personalised candidate support and advice throughout the process and the use of direct appointments where applicable.

LAQ conducts a regular survey with clients and includes collection of information about access to services. In particular, the survey provides insight into the perspectives of culturally and linguistically diverse clients, First Nations clients and clients with a disability. This information contributes to improvements in the areas of advice, representation, grants, and legal information.

LAQ was funded by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General to develop the Blurred Borders Queensland tool kits—a set of resources to help frontline workers and lawyers talk about the law with clients and community members. The tool kits were designed for frontline service providers helping people engaged in Queensland’s justice system.

By using images, storytelling and plain language the resources help frontline workers and lawyers break down complex legal concepts and explain court processes step-by-step to help clients better understand their legal rights, court obligations and participate in their legal process. LAQ delivers Blurred Borders Queensland training sessions to frontline workers and lawyers across Queensland to show them how to use the resources as part of their role.

Delivered

• In 2022–23 the Grants Division were noticing an increasing number of clients not answering calls from private numbers. From July 2023, the Grants Division commenced sending out SMS messages to clients prior to staff phoning them to indicate that a member of the Division would call them in the next 30 minutes to discuss their legal aid application. Anecdotal feedback has been received from staff indicating clients are more likely to answer a telephone call after the SMS message is sent.
• The biennial client satisfaction survey completed in February 2024 is undertaken to measure the satisfaction of LAQ clients in relation to their dealings with LAQ. Of the respondents in the core survey, 19% indicated that they had personal or cultural needs and 63% of these respondents agreed that their needs were met. Specific needs mostly related to disability, language assistance and cultural needs. Clients speaking a language other than English at home provided a high satisfaction rating.
• Scores exceeding 80% were recorded for the following areas of experience:
  • The service provider listened to your legal problem
  • It was easy to contact the legal service when you first needed help.

• LAQ adapted the existing Western Australia and Northern Territory Blurred Borders resources for the Queensland context. LAQ has produced two Blurred Borders Queensland tool kits:
  • Bail and criminal process (including youth justice)
  • Family violence.
• Each tool kit includes:
  • story cards
  • process maps
  • wallet cards
  • stickers
  • a user manual.
• The kits support trauma informed practice and can be used with:
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
  • people from CALD communities
  • young people
  • people with low literacy
  • people with disability including cognitive impairments.
• In 2023–24 LAQ delivered 19 training sessions to 382 people in Southeast Queensland, Cairns, Toowoomba, Southport, Mackay, Mount Isa, Townsville, Rockhampton, Maroochydore and Bundaberg.
• Training attendees came from a wide range of government agencies, community legal centres and community sector organisations.
• The Blurred Borders Queensland tool kits were officially launched by the Hon. Yvette D’Ath MP, Minister for Justice and Attorney-General in December 2023.
• The Blurred Borders Queensland project is currently being evaluated by external evaluators to determine the effectiveness of the tool kits and training sessions. The evaluation report is due in December 2024.
• Anecdotal feedback from training session attendees has been positive with stakeholders saying the resources will be useful to incorporate into their practise.
• Anecdotal feedback from LAQ staff who use the resources in their roles has also been positive. Staff have shared examples of how the story cards have helped clients better understand the legal process they are involved in and what their court obligations are.
• LAQ delivers Family Law duty lawyer, social and mental health supports for clients where family violence is a presenting issue in their matters in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia through the Family Advocacy and Support Service. The service provides advice, representation, social and mental health support services for clients, including many clients who come from diverse cultural backgrounds.
• LAQ operates the Client Assistance Service (CAS) which is a client focused, holistic and trauma informed service that helps the most vulnerable clients to access LAQ services. CAS supports clients when their issues cannot be resolved immediately through regular channels, such as calling the contact centre or visiting a front counter. In the 2023–24 financial year CAS assisted 166 clients including 25 clients from CALD backgrounds.
• The LAQ contact centre has a priority line for CALD clients to phone when they have an interpreter on the line. This priority line improves access to LAQ services for CALD clients who often wait for extended periods while the Translating and Interpreter Service locates an interpreter. The contact centre does not record how many CALD client’s phone LAQ, however this data will be captured in a new contact centre phone system when it is redeveloped in 2025.

LAQ collects cultural diversity data from clients and employees. LAQ will utilise cultural diversity data to inform service improvement initiatives for culturally and linguistically diverse clients. LAQ will strive to achieve service delivery and equal employment opportunity targets through service improvement and workforce planning initiatives.

Delivered

• LAQ delivered 2 community legal education sessions to frontline community service providers to help CALD people access LAQ’s services. LAQ delivered a domestic and family violence awareness session to Strong Communities—a community service organisation which supports CALD communities in Gladstone.
• LAQ attended numerous community events across Queensland providing legal information and referrals to community members and stakeholders. Events included Harmony Day, Homeless Connect, natural disaster preparedness and legal help community forums, child protection and domestic and family violence community events.
• LAQ coordinates the Community Legal Education (CLE) Collaboration Fund (funded by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General) which in 2023–24 funded legal assistance providers for collaborative, client-centred CLE projects with CALD communities:
  • Hub Community Legal received funding to develop the Child Protection Kit for Parents: A Self-Help Guide—an illustrated, culturally appropriate and accessible guide for parents involved in child protection matters.
  • Basic Rights Queensland received funding to develop a suite of client focused, accessible resources (including succinct videos and factsheets) to help people navigating the often-complex legislative framework around discrimination. These resources are targeted at marginalised communities likely to face disadvantage and discrimination in Queensland:
    • CALD
    • First Nations
    • financially disadvantaged
    • regional and rural
    • people with disability
    • young people, and
    • community leaders.
• Ongoing online and in-person cultural capability training is offered to all LAQ staff.
• Cultural capability training is embedded in LAQ’s Leadership Pathways programs.
• LAQ staff diversity data is shared with the management group on a quarterly basis.
• Cultural diversity data for the LAQ workforce illustrates increasing participation rates for the reporting period. 

Legal Aid Queensland will continue to improve its accessibility of online resources for culturally and linguistically diverse people engaging with Legal Aid Queensland’s services. Legal Aid Queensland also identifies the language needs of clients and provides translation services as required.

Delivered

• The Blurred Borders Queensland tool kits include story cards with images that can be used to map out the client’s legal situation to explain what has happened and what could happen next (e.g., you’ve got a Police Protection Notice for domestic and family violence and now you need to go to court). These visual cues help clients to better understand the legal process they are involved in and their court order obligations.
• LAQ’s Best practice principles for using the Blurred Borders Queensland resources are:
  • put people and communities first (i.e., a client-centred approach)
  • map out legal processes, stories and concepts
  • use the resources as a plain language communication tool.
• LAQ’s best practice principles support a trauma informed approach to help clients feel culturally safe and comfortable talking to a worker/lawyer. The best practice principles also support plain language and storytelling to help clients understand their legal situation in a way that makes sense to them. The goal of this approach is for clients to actively engage in conversation with the worker/lawyer, understand their legal process, give instructions as required and understand their court order obligations (and are therefore less likely to breach them).
• The Blurred Borders tool kits also include stickers featuring words and images for common court order obligations or outcomes e.g.:
  • no violence
  • no drugs or alcohol
  • stay away from (specific) people
  • domestic violence order
  • ono contact (with specific people)
  • bail.
• The stickers can be stuck on the Blurred Borders wallet cards or the client’s court documents—a visual reminder for them to take home.
• LAQ’s website content, containing publications and legal information, can be translated into other languages using Google Translate.
• LAQ provides interpreter services for clients in line with the Queensland Government’s Language Services Policy. In 2023–24, LAQ provided an interpreter on 3,526 occasions (1.95% of clients) at a cost of $294,345.
• LAQ has a priority hotline for various priority groups, which is promoted to culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people across Queensland mainly through LAQ’s legal information publications and social media. People can phone the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS) for an interpreter to connect them to the priority number: 1800 998 980. This is expected to ease the problem of people with interpreters having to drop out of the call queue due to wait times.
• LAQ continued to distribute and promote the multilingual Need legal help? booklet and poster (explaining access via the TIS and 1800 number). The booklets are translated into 18 languages and the posters are translated into 11 languages.
• LAQ’s website content, containing publications and legal information, is available in about 100 languages through a translation tool, Reach Deck.
• LAQ continued to distribute the translated family law dispute resolution service publications to family dispute resolution clients. The publications are translated into five languages (Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Arabic and Punjabi). 

Legal Aid Queensland’s Blurred Borders Queensland tool kits are helping frontline workers and lawyers to talk about the law with their clients. We developed best practice principles in how to use the Blurred Borders story cards and other resources to support effective, trauma informed two-way communication between the worker/lawyer and the client.

The Blurred Borders Queensland tool kits include story cards with images that can be used to map out the client’s legal situation to explain what has happened and what could happen next (e.g., you’ve got a Police Protection Notice for domestic and family violence and now you need to go to court). These visual cues help clients to better understand the legal process they are involved in and their court order obligations.

Our Blurred Borders training sessions are underpinned by our best practice principles—we teach frontline workers and lawyers how to adopt a best practice approach when using the resources with clients. LAQ’s Best practice principles for using the Blurred Borders Queensland resources are:

• put people and communities first (i.e., a client-centred approach)
• map out legal processes, stories and concepts, and
• use the resources as a plain language communication tool.

Cultural Capability Roadmap and Training

Delivered

• LAQ has subscribed to the SBS Inclusion Program. The program is available to all staff, an implementation schedule including in-person and online training sessions with staff across the state has commenced and will continue in 2024–25.