TRANSFORMING LIVES THROUGH MULTIDISCIPLINARY WORK
Written by Associate Professor Cate Banks, Law Experiential Education.
Laura Dunlop,Legal Officer and Associate Professor Cate Banks Supervising Lawyer cohealth Clinic.
In 2021, Monash Law Clinics launched the first health justice partnership with a large community health service, cohealth.
The legal clinic is known as the cohealth Monash Legal Assistance Service (cMLAS). It’s located at a cohealth health service in order to provide clients with the opportunity to seek legal assistance in an environment where they feel comfortable. It also enables them to attend appointments with other service providers in one place.
cMLAS is a legal service and a student clinic.It is founded on trauma-informed principles. The trauma-informed model aligns and strengthens the multidisciplinary partnership with cohealth. More importantly, it provides students with an opportunity to consider, learn and practice a set of skills in a holistic environment that emphasises the competing interests and values clients may be experiencing as a person, rather than simply focusing on the legal issue(s) at hand.
The cMLAS health justice partnership, with the consent of clients, provides wraparound services. This means that legal practitioners, students, and healthcare and allied health practitioners work in tandem to provide holistic services to clients with concomitant legal and health issues. For example, students and supervising lawyers participate in safety planning and care team meetings conducted by family violence case managers and counsellors, and other support workers.
The clients of cMLAS are mostly victim survivors of family and domestic violence who may present initially with one legal issue and during the course of the relationship students are taught to identify where safety, social and financial pressures may have created a myriad and complex web of several legal issues. In traditional legal practice, these other legal issues may not be identified, or they may be referred to another legal service which creates barriers to access to justice if not addressed at the same time. For example, a client who presented at cMLAS two years ago with one legal issue has now been assisted with approximately eight other legal matters. This client is now a friend of the clinic, and often drops by to say hello and keep us updated on her adventures because she sees a future that she could not envision before. This is an example of the importance of relationship building and multidisciplinary work in transforming lives.