Meeting the needs of diverse clients

Annual Report 2023–24

Introduction

Many of our services are targeted at people experiencing significant disadvantage.

Our diverse client base includes children, people with disability, people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities and LGBTQIA+ people. We advocate for law and policy reform that protects disadvantaged clients in pursuit of a more just society.

Fact file
- 9.6% of our casework services were provided to clients born in non-English speaking countries.
- We spent $1,402,972.51 (excluding GST) on interpreting and translation services.
- We presented 208 community legal education events for culturally and linguistically diverse and newly arrived migrant audiences.

Improving access for clients and staff with disability

In response to feedback from clients and staff and our experiences operating the Your Story Disability Legal Service, we began a program of disability inclusion work in 2023–24. We recruited two roles identified for people with lived experience of disability in our Client Services and HR teams to manage a program of work to ensure we are responding to the needs of our clients with disability.

The Legal Aid NSW Disability Inclusion Action Plan is undergoing development and will be ready for implementation in December 2024. To help us build the plan, we conducted 32 consultations with clients and community members with disability, disability organisations and staff. The final plan will guide us toward becoming more accessible and inclusive for clients and staff with lived experience of disability and mental ill-health.

We developed a Disability Inclusion Advisory Panel, which comprises eight external people with lived experience of disability and mental ill-health as well as knowledge or experience accessing legal assistance services. This panel has provided expert and impartial advice to Legal Aid NSW as we have developed the new Legal Aid NSW Disability Inclusion Action Plan and will continue to advise on its implementation, monitoring and review.

Developing the Cultural Competence and Diversity Framework

We conducted extensive internal and external consultations in 2023–24 to inform the new Cultural Competence and Diversity Framework. The work was led by staff with culturally diverse lived experiences.

The framework provides guidance for staff to ensure our legal services are accessible to people of all cultural, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and all religious backgrounds or beliefs. The framework is centred around four principles: equity, safety, competence and accountability.

The framework requires us to embed cultural competence in the daily work of all staff through training, reflection and ongoing practice. Later in 2024, we will implement the new framework, which will include training for frontline staff on how to work with interpreters.

Mother receives much-needed child support

Reynes & Dionett (2024)

We acted for a woman who had been involved in an ongoing parenting and property case. She is not a permanent resident of Australia, is not eligible for Centrelink benefits, and is unable to work due to a disability. When proceedings commenced, she was the primary carer for her child, whose father had initially been ordered to pay spousal maintenance. She then made a further application for child support.

The child’s father sought a reduction in child support, arguing it had not been considered when the court determined their original split of property and spousal support. Interim orders were made, reducing the amount of spousal support our client received.

Proceedings were delayed by our client’s health, challenges in obtaining medical reports, and an unsuccessful mediation. The matter was finally heard in March 2024 – over six years after the reduction in child support was sought by the child’s father. During the proceedings, our client’s health had deteriorated, and she had been hospitalised. Her child had gone to live with their father.

The court acknowledged the difficulties of the proceedings for both parties but found that it was indisputable that our client had been “living a desperate life financially”, given there was no social security safety net for her in Australia and she was unable to work.

The court was not satisfied that her child’s father’s spousal maintenance payments made his child support liability unfair. He was ordered to pay spousal maintenance for a further five years and remains liable for the child support that accrued while the matter was before the court.

Training for private lawyers on working with diverse clients

In May 2024, we launched a training package for private lawyers new to working with legal aid clients called Understanding our Clients and Serving our Mob. The training is designed to provide lawyers with foundational awareness and knowledge to aid understanding of our clients. It helps lawyers work more effectively with prisoners, children and young people, homeless people, older people, people experiencing domestic and family violence, people experiencing mental ill-health, people with a disability and culturally and linguistically diverse people, including refugees. The ‘serving our mob’ component focuses specifically on understanding our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients.

Ensuring early intervention access to the NDIS for a teenager with disability

HVMQ v National Disability Insurance Agency (2024)

We secured a life-changing result in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for our client HVMQ, setting an important precedent for people who need access to the NDIS where another system exists that could partially meet their needs.

HVMQ is unable to use her bladder and bowel without assistive technology and the assistance of a person. The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) argued that HVMQ was not eligible for support under the NDIS because she did not have a substantially reduced functional capacity in self-care and did not meet the early intervention requirements. A subsidy was available for the cost of catheters, and the argument was made that support was more appropriately funded for her under the health system.

Our NDIS Team put together detailed evidence from the client’s mother, psychologist and nurse to describe the impact of her impairments and the supports that she could only access through the NDIS. The tribunal accepted our argument that HVMQ met the early intervention requirements. She now has access to supports to help her live her life as an active and social teenager.