November 2014

Law in Schools

Grant: £35,995
November 26, 2014

Four parts to this project include

• Scope and create the THEMIS quality mark – this would be the first attempt in the UK to establish a quality assurance mark for PCLE resources.
• Extend the scope of the Law in Schools portal so that it can provide a brokerage mechanism and reliable access to secondary schools across the UK for any legal professional volunteering programme.
• Create the Law in Schools Writers’ Group.
• Develop and extend the resources available on the Law in Schools portal.

Bar Mock Trials - Northern Ireland

Grant: £12,000
November 26, 2014

The Citizenship Foundation has been operating this programme for some years and now has 18 regional heats one of which takes place in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This funding will allow a second regional heat in Northern Ireland, in Derry/Londonderry concentrating on schools from the least advantaged areas and inter denominational work where possible and ensuring equal representation from both communities.

Developing Lessons for Schoolchildren

Grant: £25,000
November 26, 2014

Enabling Enterprise is a not-for-profit company, set up by a team of teachers in 2009. Its mission is to equip young people with the skills, aspirations and experiences they need to succeed in life, through programmes to help teachers. The funding will enable them to develop a set of two lesson time projects and two challenge days. One of each will be for primary school students, the others for secondary. It will showcase that:

• some problems have a legal angle to them and therefore can be solved through application of the law.
• there are opportunities to demystify the law, so that students see it as relevant to them and a practical way to overcome the challenges they face in their lives.
• a set of recognised legal skills is developed through the work we do
• as children learn about their rights, they also gain an understanding of their corresponding obligations.

Legal Needs Survey

Grant: £84,000
November 26, 2014

The survey has a number of aims which are shared between the three partner organisations. To:

• understand how consumer responses to legal problems are changing;
• provide a platform for the field (including TLEF grantees) to assess the impact of their work over time;
• understand more about legal knowledge, beliefs, capability, and capacity;
• capture how legal needs interact with other needs, such as health;
• assess the impact of legal aid and Jackson reforms implemented on 1st April 2013;
• monitor changes in the market that have arisen as result of changes to regulation.

At this stage, it is envisaged that the survey will be repeated every three years.

Understanding the role of university Law Clinics Phase 1

Grant: £27,000
November 26, 2014

The University’s Ulster Law Clinic will undertake a research project to better understand:

• the role of university law clinics in UK justice provision and
• how effective they are at reducing barriers to participative justice.

The report will:

• Map the paths to justice for citizens accessing university law clinics in the UK
• Identify the stages in their disputes at which clients contact university law clinics
• Identify the contribution that clinics make to existing access to justice provision
• Make policy recommendations relevant to the development of the clinic movement as part of an access to justice landscape
• Underpin conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications
• Be distributed to clinics and their stakeholders throughout the UK.
• Establish a foundational framework to develop further research on the utility of university law clinics as access to justice models that can be utilised and developed by others, including the Legal Education Foundation

Training Modules for online Anti Trafficking Hub

Grant: £50,000
November 26, 2014

ATLEU is a newly established charity providing legal representation to victims of trafficking and labour exploitation; assisting victims to obtain safety, recovery and redress. This funding will enable ATLEU to develop and deliver a programme of 8 training modules to help support providers and legal practitioners to assist victims of trafficking across the UK. Tools will include an online “Anti Trafficking Hub” which will host:

• training modules in video and written
• a second tier legal advice service
• links to organisations operating within the anti-trafficking sector
• upcoming training sessions (all sessions will also be delivered via video link using technology such as Google Hangouts or Skype)
• a client referral mechanism.

The Role of Advice Services in Health

Grant: £22,440
November 26, 2014

The Advice Services Alliance (ASA) and the Low Commission are in the first stage of a wider initiative to better integrate health and advice services, and to explore further potential for advice providers to access health related funding. Whilst the adverse impacts of legal social welfare problems on the health and wellbeing of vulnerable people are widely acknowledged, this is not matched by a corresponding recognition of the health benefits of legal advice. This funding will enable it to research available evidence to demonstrate the health impacts of advice work, to assess the quality of this and identity gaps (particularly in relation to current health policy). It will also map existing projects that deliver advice in health settings to identify types of project, health outcomes, settings and funding sources. The work will lay the basis for a strategy to be developed by an Advisory Group, led by the Low Commission.

Summer School

Grant: £7,000
November 26, 2014

This funding will allow additional spaces on its London Summer School for Welsh young people.

Specialist courses in Employment Law and Family Law

Grant: £12,000
November 26, 2014

A project to establish a series of intensive training programmes for lawyers in corporate law firms before they commence providing advice in legal advice centres. The intention is that the programme of courses should eventually be self-funded from charges for the provision of the courses.

PLE programme with young people

Grant: £79,585
November 26, 2014

Through its 200 members nationwide, Youth Access is the largest provider of young people’s advice and counselling services in the UK. This funding is for phase one to scope out a longer term project to work in partnership with a number of local frontline voluntary sector agencies to deliver a national programme of public legal education aimed at young people.