STRATEGiC to 2021 SOUTH WEST SYDNEY LEGAL CENTRE

Transcription

1 STRATEGiC FRAmEWORk 2018 to 2021 SOUTH WEST SYDNEY LEGAL CENTRE

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS WHO WE ARE 3 OUR VISION, PURPOSE AND PASSION 4 WHO WE SERVE 5 OUR STRATEGIC PRIORITIES 7 PRIORITY AREA 1 OUR LEGAL PRACTICE 10 PRIORITY AREA 2 DOMESTIC AND FAMILY VIOLENCE 11 PRIORITY AREA 3 COMMUNITY EDUCATION 13 PRIORITY AREA 4 EXPAND OUR DIGITAL FOOTPRINT 14 PRIORITY AREA 5 INCREASE ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITY 15 PRIORITY AREA 6 CONTINUOUS SERVICE IMPROVEMENT 17 02

3 WHO WE ARE South West Sydney Legal Service was established in 1986 to deliver free legal services for people living or working in the South West Sydney Local Government Areas of Liverpool, Fairfield and Bankstown. We commenced with a very small budget and a part-time team of two people. We are now a multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary organisation providing legal services, community legal education and a range of support and therapeutic services to women and children who have experienced domestic and family violence. Our budget has grown to nearly $4 million and we have a staff count of just under 40 people. In 2016/17, our services assisted more than 6,000 people. We are leaders in providing a high level of advocacy, support, case management and therapeutic services for vulnerable people who need our support and assistance. The feedback to our organisation from our partners and clients tells us that our services are: Valued in the community by our clients and service and funding partners Achieving tangible outcomes for our clients Growing in demand across all of our services Responsive to the needs of the community that we serve; Trusted Some of our major areas of strength are: Our staff - we have an experienced, committed and stable team. Many have been with us long-term Our culture - we are an organisation with a healthy internal culture and a respectful workplace Our relationships we have built strong relationships with our service partners Our effective management - we have been able to effectively manage our resources in a way that gives us a degree of organisational stability 03

4 OUR ViSiON, PURPOSE AND PASSiON OUR VISION Ensuring our community s most vulnerable people have equal access to justice To break the cycle of domestic and family violence for women and children OUR PURPOSE We are an integrated legal and domestic violence service targeted to the needs of the communities in South West Sydney We exist to provide equal access to services to the most vulnerable in our community We aim to collaborate with other service providers to improve outcomes for our clients across our legal and domestic violence services To spread a culture of respectful relationships WHAT DRIVES US? Serving the diverse communities of South West Sydney Providing high quality services to people who need them the most Getting just and fair outcomes for our clients Empowering people to take control of their lives and their legal issues Working with our community partners to support our clients and work for change in our communities Increase safety, decrease isolation, and increase empowerment Addressing the gendered inequity that women and children face Educating the community about the impact of violence and basic human rights 04

5 WHO WE SERVE The communities in South West Sydney that we serve have a number of unique strengths and challenges. The strengths of the area are: One of the most successful multicultural communities in the world Emerging new development areas and high population growth The most diverse workforce in Australia One of Australia s fastest growing professional labour markets and a rapid growth in the number of new graduates eager to find local employment Specialised clustering of growth sectors such as the Health and Education Precinct in Liverpool However, the Region does present some significant challenges for society s vulnerable: The South West Subregion has the lowest performance in terms of unemployment, participation rates and median weekly household income, with a considerable gap between this Subregion and the others in Greater Sydney The three Centrelink Employment Service Areas with the highest proportions of working age people receiving benefits are located, or at least partially located, within the South West Subregion. These are Fairfield (19.4%), Liverpool (15.4%) and Canterbury-Bankstown (15.3%) Fairfield LGA is the highest recipient of family reunion & humanitarian settlers. This provides short-term challenges but long-term strength given what we know about outcomes for these groups Source 1 Shaping Future Cities Designing Western Sydney A blueprint for the economic transformation of Western Sydney December 2015 Delloite 2 Regional Development Australia: A Regional Plan for Sydney. 05

6 ONE OF THE most SUCCESSFUL multicultural COmmUNiTiES in THE WORLD 06

7 A GROWiNG ORGANiSATiON SiNCE 2013, WE HAVE more THAN DOUBLED OUR income AND ALmOST DOUBLED OUR STAFF TO meet THE DEmAND FOR OUR SERViCES. WE HAVE ALSO: Expanded our multi-cultural work in Domestic and Family Violence Launched the Bankstown and Liverpool Local Coordination Points Program in partnership with NSW Police Achieved professional accreditation under the National Association of Community Legal Centres Partnered with the Law and Justice Foundation to undertake research and develop resources such as Hearing Support Launched a fee-for-service social enterprise with the aim of generating additional funds for our free services. This service is aimed to cover the gap between mainstream services and legal aid Expanded areas of legal expertise in criminal law, family law, employment law; and wills and probate Partnered with other key agencies to multiply impact, for example, the Local Area Health District to develop a wraparound service for chronically disadvantaged and for community members suffering mental illness 07

8 OUR STRATEGiC PRiORiTiES WE WiLL CONTiNUE TO GROW AND BUiLD ON OUR SUCCESS BY: Consolidating our strong reputation for providing legal and domestic violence services rather than diversifying our service mix improving the internal alignment of our services Working with our service partners to ensure we place new and existing services strategically and culturally where the need is Diversifying our sources of funding investing in the capacity of our staff, management, and board to ensure that the organisation continues to grow and develop with a focus on succession planning and stability 08

9 OUR STRATEGiC PRiORiTiES OUR key STRATEGiC PRiORiTY AREAS FOR PRIORITY AREA 1 PRIORITY AREA 2 PRIORITY AREA 3 PRIORITY AREA 4 PRIORITY AREA 5 PRIORITY AREA 6 FURTHER EXPAND OUR LEGAL SERViCES ADVANCE DOmESTiC AND FAmiLY ViOLENCE PRACTiCES AND SERViCES DEVELOP PROFESSiONAL COmmUNiTY EDUCATiON EXPAND OUR DiGiTAL FOOTPRiNT increase ORGANiSATiONAL CAPABiLiTY CONTiNUOUS SERViCE improvement THESE PRiORiTY AREAS WiLL GUiDE OUR ANNUAL OPERATiONAL PLANNiNG 09

10 PRIORITY AREA 1 FURTHER EXPAND OUR LEGAL SERViCES OVER THE LIFE OF THIS FRAMEWORK, WE WILL: 1. Establish A2J as a self-sustaining social enterprise facilitating an increase in our capacity to provide free services in both our legal and domestic violence services 2.Better align our Legal and Domestic Violence services 3.Improve access to employment legal services for people from culturally diverse backgrounds 4.Increase our capability to provide strategic litigation in matters of public interest What we want to achieve: To improve access to quality legal services to those who can not afford them or who face barriers to access such services. Challenging inequalities in the law or legal systems which have an impact on groups of people or individuals. 5.Develop strategic alliances with other agencies and organisations where legal need is a factor and where we can become part of an integration of services HOW WILL WE KNOW THAT WE ARE SUCCESSFUL? A2J will be self-sustaining and contributing revenue to increase the provision of free services Clients of our Domestic Violence Services will have seamless access to the legal services that they require We will increase the proportion of employment matters to people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds We will have concluded successful public-interest litigation matters New strategic alliances have been developed 10

11 What we want to achieve: To continue to strengthen and develop our services to women and children who have experienced domestic and family violence Further develop trauma-informed practices Increase services to children affected by Domestic Violence and work towards breaking the intergenerational trauma Increase the range of therapeutic services. PRIORITY AREA 2 ADVANCE DOmESTiC AND FAmiLY ViOLENCE PRACTiCES AND SERViCES 11

12 PRIORITY AREA 2 ADVANCE DOmESTiC AND FAmiLY ViOLENCE PRACTiCES AND SERViCES OVER THE LIFE OF THIS FRAMEWORK, WE WILL: 1. Increase our investment in traumainformed therapy services for women and children 2. Seek opportunities to establish services focussing on early intervention and prevention 3. Seek opportunities to increase services to the children who are connected to our services 4. Provided seamless and integrated services between legal and non-legal services 5. Increase our influence as a service leader in the Domestic Violence sector 6. Increase our engagement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community to ensure that our services specifically reach those in need in that community 7. Continue engagement with new and emerging culturally and linguistic diverse communities 8. Continue to develop partnerships. HOW WILL WE KNOW THAT WE ARE SUCCESSFUL?. Domestic and Family Violence specialist workers, and the women we work with, can report positive outcomes for them and their children Clients are able to set goals and achieve them Formal evaluations are undertaken pre and post service provision Women are informed and empowered to make choices We will increase capacity/resources to service more clients Our clients have to navigate fewer services to gain what they need Our services will be accessed by more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children Feedback from clients and stakeholders will in form how our services are shaped and delivered 12

13 PRIORITY AREA 3 DEVELOP PROFESSiONAL COmmUNiTY EDUCATiON OVER THE LIFE OF THIS FRAMEWORK, WE WILL: 1. Develop and implement joint Legal-Domestic Violence Training to deliver in our community and to our service partners 2.Develop and provide education on Domestic Violence to religious and cultural leaders in our community 3. Develop or acquire training resources to assist non-legal professionals identify and triage the legal needs of their clients 4. We will seek resources to employ a development worker to support CLE 5. Develop strategic partnerships so that CLE can be targeted to leaders and community workers to build the capacity of our service partners and community workers What we want to achieve: Contribute to community education and dialogue on issues surrounding domestic and family violence. Spread a culture of respectful relationships. Improve our capacity to impact on broad legal issues through the increased provision of Community Legal Education (CLE). HOW WILL WE KNOW THAT WE ARE SUCCESSFUL? We will have resourced this priority area We will have conducted a review of our on-line and web-based services and have implemented a digital information strategy We will have deployed and evaluated our intended training We will assess the feedback from those who receive our training We will be able to measure the use of our on-line resources 13

14 PRIORITY AREA 4 EXPAND OUR DiGiTAL FOOTPRiNT OVER THE LIFE OF THIS FRAMEWORK, WE WILL: 1. Re-develop our website to enable the community to more effectively access the information and services that we can offer 2. Increase our investment in web or application-based resources and access to our services 3. Develop or acquire on-line resources to assist people who have the capacity to access and use these resources including but not limited to motor vehicle accident claims for the uninsured and employment matters 4.Develop webinars and other on-line resources that can be accessed at any time by the community 5. Develop an active digital strategy to promote the service and the resources available 6. Invest in more effective communication resources to culturally and linguistically diverse communities in our catchment HOW WILL WE KNOW THAT WE ARE SUCCESSFUL? What we want to achieve: Increase our use of technology to expand the reach and effectiveness of our services Our new website will be launched Our digital strategy will have been formulated, deployed & evaluated. We will see an increase the use of these resources and the ways in which clients access our services We will use technology to increase our productivity and effectiveness 14

15 What we want to achieve: Strengthen the capacity of the organisation to grow and be able to support that growth sustainably. PRIORITY AREA 5 increase ORGANiSATiONAL CAPABiLiTY 15

16 PRIORITY AREA 5 increase ORGANiSATiONAL CAPABiLiTY OVER THE LIFE OF THIS FRAMEWORK, WE WILL: 1. Seek to diversify our revenue streams through: a. Philanthropic or Corporate Funding; b. Fundraising and giving; c. New Government funding programs; d. Social investment potential funding strategies for A2J 2. Invest in further building the capability of our Staff, Management, and Board to ensure our continued rate of retention and to facilitate effective succession planning at all levels of the organisation 3. Build strategic partnerships to provide pro bono and volunteer assistance to the organisation 4. Streamline our management and administrative structure and systems to ensure that resources are more effectively used to support the organisation 5. Continue to provide ongoing appropriate professional development 6. The culture we create for our clients is the culture we create for our staff 7. Work towards being a trauma informed work place HOW WILL WE KNOW THAT WE ARE SUCCESSFUL? We will have sourced new revenue streams that will support additional service delivery Our Board & Management Teams will have the required capability to lead the organisation We can measure the number and impact of our strategic partnerships Our staff retention is stable. Staff will report being supported and valued by the organisation 16

17 PRIORITY AREA 6 CONTiNUOUS SERViCE improvement OVER THE LIFE OF THIS FRAMEWORK, WE WILL: 1. Investigate the most appropriate monitoring and evaluation tools for our suite of services 2. Integrate monitoring and evaluation into service provision as part of our normal business operations 3. Evaluate all service areas to identify areas for improvement and to help us and our clients realise our goals more efficiently 4. Share the results of our research to help advance education in the sector 5. Look to demonstrate our program s success and progress 6. Better communicate our program's impact to others, which is critical for public relations, staff morale, and attracting and retaining support from current and potential funders What we want to achieve: Monitor, assess and adapt our activities to ensure they are as effective as they can be Ensure we are operating out of best practice to maximise the outcomes for our clients HOW WILL WE KNOW THAT WE ARE SUCCESSFUL? We have established the use of the most appropriate model / models for the monitoring and evaluating of our services Each service area has been evaluated and an ongoing process has been built into monitoring and measuring service effectiveness We are able to qualify and quantify our impact Our internal culture champions the value of continuously improving our services 17

18 SOUTH WEST SYDNEY LEGAL CENTRE Head Office Level 1, Moore St Liverpool NSW 2170 South West Sydney Legal Centre acknowledges Peter Muir for his input and support in developing this Strategic Framework. Ph: (admin line) Fax: