Access to legal services in womens' shelters.

• Author: Wright, Alysia

In December 2015, the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family (CRILF) published a new report, Access to Legal Services in Women's Shelters, authored by myself and Dr. Lorne Bertrand, examining access to legal services among clients of women's domestic violence shelters. The study sampled the views of staff and clients at three domestic violence shelters with the goals of:

* improving understanding of clients' legal service needs;

* examining the challenges clients attempting to access legal services encounter; and

* making recommendations for improvement.

Although domestic violence affects both men and women, women are disproportionally victims of domestic violence compared to men and there are no shelters for male victims of domestic violence in Alberta.

We conclude that clients' service needs are complex and often involve legal problems, yet shelters face specific organizational barriers to co-ordinating legal services. We recommend that a further Albertawide study be undertaken to examine the legal access patterns of women experiencing domestic violence, to assess the prevalence of the barriers identified in the study and to determine whether further barriers are present in other shelters.

Method

As we were working with social service providers serving vulnerable populations, the methodology for this project was developed in a collaborative and participatory manner. The three agency partners worked with us to develop an 18-question client survey and distribute it to their clients. In addition to the survey, agencies made staff available to participate in agency-based focus groups. These groups were facilitated by myself and Dr. Bertrand and included a total of 15 staff members.

The client survey asked about how long the client had stayed at the shelter, which shelters they received help from, how many children they had with them during their stay, and numerous questions about their legal situation. Of 46 respondents, 36 had at least one legal issue while they stayed at the shelter, although the majority (n=24; 66.7%) had two or more legal issues. The purpose of the survey was to determine what legal issues were common among women who access shelters, what resources these clients access during their time at the shelter, and the client's self-reported experience with using these resources.

The purpose of the staff focus groups was to identify how agency staff responded to legal issues presented by the shelters' clients. To facilitate the focus groups, we developed a protocol that had areas of focus, which in turn informed the eight questions that guided the focus group. The areas of focus were based on existing literature and best practice standards in North American women's shelters. Some of the focus areas were co-ordination protocols for providing holistic services to clients, community partnerships and resources used as referrals to legal services, staff engagement and training to respond to the complex socio-legal needs of clients, and follow-up strategies in order to track client outcomes after the client has left the shelter. The eight questions were then developed in order to flesh out these areas of focus, including engagement, exploration, and exit questions.

Major Observations

The approach used in this study allowed us to explore the intersections of staff and client perceptions. Both staff and clients recognized that the legal system is difficult to navigate, while the majority of clients expressed that navigating their legal issues was more difficult than they expected. When...