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What is it?
Legal Aid Queensland has identified children and young people as a particularly vulnerable group that has difficulty not only accessing justice, but can also find it difficult to access legal service provision in the first place.
Our youth access strategy aims to:
- define our approach to the legal representation of children
- define our role in the current child and youth legal services landscape in Queensland
- coordinate and maximise our capacity to provide legal services to Queensland children
- create an ongoing capability for identifying gaps in our service delivery to children and issues for youth policy and systems advocacy.
Vision
To enhance children and young people's access to justice in Queensland.
Children and young people are defined as those under 18 with a focus on the marginalised and disadvantaged.
Mission
To increase children and young people's access to appropriate and quality legal services and to improve the responsiveness of Legal Aid Queensland to meeting children and young people's needs.
The youth access strategy focuses on marginalised and disadvantaged children and young people.
Marginalised and disadvantaged are identified as those children and young people who:
- are in the juvenile justice or child protection systems
- have a physical or intellectual disability
- have a mental illness or substance abuse problem
- live in rural or remote areas with limited access to services
- are at risk of exclusion from schooling
- are vulnerably housed or homeless
- are pregnant, parenting or act as a carer for other family members
- are gay, lesbian or bisexual
- are from refugee or non-English-speaking backgrounds
- are from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.
Service objectives
The youth access strategy's objectives are to:
- maximise awareness of our legal services for children and young people
- ensure our services, including pathways to and through Legal Aid Queensland, are accessible to children and young people
- coordinate and lead the provision of quality legal services to children and young people by Legal Aid Queensland and the legal profession
- develop statewide relationships with key partners in the legal system and youth sector to deliver legal services to children and young people, which maximises shared capacity
- use casework experience to inform Legal Aid Queensland and, where appropriate, advocate to government in policy development related to legal issues affecting children and young people.
Youth Advocate
Our Youth Advocate is responsible for leadership of the youth access strategy.