Whittlesea Community Legal Service
The Whittlesea Community Legal Service (WCLS) aims to
address the barriers that prevent people from accessing
the justice system. WCLS achieves this by providing a
range of legal services that include
?
Casework
?
Community legal education and
?
Law reform
WCLS’s strategy is to respond to the needs of Whittlesea’s
communities by providing information, legal advice and
education and by focusing on providing legal services to
those who need it the most. We pride ourselves on taking
our lead from the local community and forming our
priorities and activities based on those needs.
During 2012/13 WCLS was supported by the state
government through funding administered by Victoria Legal
Aid and by funding from the Commonwealth Attorney
General’s department.
This financial year has seen us build on our performance
on previous years. We exceeded our target for the number
of legal cases we opened by 18% and the number of cases
closed (finalised) by 86%. We also overshot our target for
provision of legal advice by almost 93%.
? Legal referrals made
1,585
? Legal advice and information given
1,241
? Cases opened
389
? Cases finalised
354
? Cases open as at 30 June 2013
293
WCLS clients and service users came from 74 different
countries with almost 52% being born overseas.
1.
Australia
2.
Iraq
54
3.
India/Macedonia
43
4.
Italy
34
5.
Iran
26
6.
Greece
21
7.
Sri Lanka
20
8.
Lebanon/Philippines
9.
England
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Whittlesea Township (at Plenty Valley Community
Health)
Mill Park (at Mill Park Community House)
Lalor (at Anglicare for women involved in family
law/violence)
South Morang (at Kildonan UnitingCare)
Greensborough (at Greensborough Family
Relationship Centre)
Doreen ( at Laurimar Community Activity Centre)
The coming year will also see us further extend our legal
services to the Thomastown area as we utilise the
Thomastown West Community Hub based at Thomastown
Primary School.
A key component of our outreach program is our
arrangement with the Greensborough Family Relationship
Centre. Through our partnership with the GFRC we provide
information sessions, advice and casework for separating
couples. Our work provides an important opportunity for
parents to agree arrangements for their children without
resorting to the courts and avoiding long-protracted
disputes. 457 advice and information activities were
provided during the year, 128% above target.
As part of our strategy to remove access barriers to legal
services, a weekly Monday night service is provided for
those unable to access day-time appointments. Statistics
show 216 advice activities were provided by our nightservice volunteer solicitors. Additionally, there were 110
matters representing 50 problem types that were referred
to other agencies during the period. Additionally 192
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