COMMUNITY legal assistance sector agencies across Queensland will be able to help more people to understand their legal rights and responsibilities, thanks to additional project funding provided by the Queensland Government.
The funding, provided through Legal Aid Queensland’s Community Legal Education (CLE) Collaboration Fund, resources grant recipients to deliver a range of projects and initiatives including workshops and education programs, through to online and accessible educational videos.
“Educating the community about their legal rights and responsibilities is an important part of Legal Aid Queensland’s role and our collaboration fund provides grants to legal assistance sector agencies to deliver collaborative CLE projects across Queensland,” Legal Aid Queensland CEO Anthony Reilly said.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, new and established migrant communities in regional areas, young parents, and prisoners in regional Queensland are among the community members who will benefit from the CLE initiatives supported through the fund in 2019”.
The recipients sharing in $95,000 in funding are:
Refugee and Immigration Legal Service -to coordinate a Multicultural Men’s Shed as part of a strategy to address family violence prevention and conflict resolution. The initiative involves developing legal education resources and life-skills community workshops.
Caxton Legal Centre - to work with Deaf Services Queensland to develop five short Auslan videos for Queensland Deaf and hard of hearing communities to help people identify legal issues and access legal help. Video topics include: overview of common legal issues; your right to an Auslan interpreter; first steps in family violence and domestic violence; crimes, fines and dealing with police; first steps in common legal problems.
Prisoners Legal Service - to deliver face-to-face legal education sessions in Townsville Men and Womens Correctional Centre to increase awareness about parole processes, and reduce barriers that prevent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and hard to reach prisoners from understanding their legal rights and accessing legal help with parole. Prisoners Legal Service will also coordinate education workshops with prisoner throughcare agencies and accommodation providers in Townsville.
YFS Legal - to collaborate with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and communities to research, develop and deliver a CLE program with First Nations people in Logan. The project will increase awareness of legal rights and responsibilities and improve access to legal support to prevent legal issues occurring or escalating.
Central Queensland Community Legal Centre - to collaborate with Central Queensland Multicultural Association and Central Queensland University and other community groups on a community development project to produce CLE resources in collaboration with community members from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds through sharing stories around common legal issues. These legal topics will form the basis of the community legal education resources to be developed as part of the project.
Women’s Legal Service (WLS) - to develop CLE workshops and materials and host a launch event in collaboration with Young Mothers for Young Women (Micah) and WLS Health Justice Partnership. The project will be developed in consultation with peer support workers who are young mothers themselves and help equip young women who are pregnant and parenting to understand legal issues and connect to services to get help.
Bundaberg Regional Legal Assistance Forum in partnership with the Family Law Pathways network in the Wide Bay region - to deliver CLE information sessions on common legal topics to community members, and community, health and education workers in that region.
The collaboration fund is an initiative of Legal Aid Queensland and is funded by the Queensland Government’s Department of Justice and Attorney-General and Legal Aid Queensland.
Media contact: Amanda Catania 3917 0407 or Caroline Page 3917 0457
Last updated 16 July 2019