WELLINGTON COUNTY – A pilot program will soon bring residents of Wellington County access to legal aid through a mobile service.
The Legal Clinic of Guelph and Wellington County (LCGWC), which provides free legal services for low-income people in the region, announced on Jan. 9 it has received a Connecting Rural Regions grant from The Law Foundation of Ontario to test a mobile legal outreach and navigation service in rural Wellington County.
The grant was awarded to support LCGWC in exploring and testing ways to reach clients living in isolated and rural areas.
The grant will build on the work the clinic has already done on the Legal Health Check Up Project (developed by Halton Community Legal Clinic and funded by Legal Aid Ontario) and the Secondary Consultation Project (in partnership with the Halton Clinic and the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Clinic and funded by Legal Aid Ontario).
This project is testing the use of a mobile legal service to meet people where they live in Wellington.
Supporting community partners for this project include the Mount Forest Family Health Team, Wellington County Public Library and Social Services, East Wellington Community Services as well as Legal Aid Ontario and Community Justice Initiatives.
LCGWC will work with these agencies and others to reach rural members of the community who are experiencing legal issues as well as barriers in accessing legal information, advice and assistance.
The Wellington County Mobile Legal Service (WellCoMs) will be staffed with an outreach worker and a legal services navigator. The team will be supported and supervised by staff lawyers of LCGWC.
“We’re going to have a van, that we’re renting and it will be staffed by an outreach worker and a legal services navigator,” said lawyer Anthea Millikin, executive director of LCGWC.
The WellCoMs van will visit communities in Wellington County and set up in parking lots, in partnership with public and private services and businesses.
A pop-up tent will be set up together with table, chairs, coffee and other refreshments to create a welcoming and approachable atmosphere for conversations, officials say.
“The idea is simply to reduce some barriers so the people, anyone, can go up (to) the van and talk with the people about what’s going on in their life,” said Millikin.
“We call these everyday legal issues, because often people will say, ‘Oh I don’t have any legal issues in my life,’ because they’re thinking criminal law or thinking about family law.
“Yet they do have legal issues because perhaps they’re late paying their rent, or they’re having some income issues. These are all legal issues.”
In some cases, Millikin said, clients may be connected with other services that are available in the county but the WellCoMs team will also have the capacity to provide on-the-spot consultation with lawyers or paralegals through Skype.
The goal of this project is to increase the number of rural community members seeking legal information and advice and to test whether bringing services to rural communities will increase the number of new consultations and contacts, the organization states.
“Another goal is to deepen our relationships with trusted intermediaries and form new contacts in the community to sustain this work once the project is complete.”
While efforts to establish a permanent mobile service could be an outcome of a successful pilot, Millikin said shorter-term goals include making more people aware of the services and establishing connections with other service providers.
“My dream is to have a camper van with the legal clinic logo on it and to travel throughout the county,” she said. However, “That would be hard to find the funding for.”
Millikin, said mobile clinics will be visiting approximately twice a month in Clifford, Mount Forest, Harriston, Palmerston, Drayton, Arthur, Fergus and Elora, Erin, Hillsburgh, Rockwood and Puslinch.
The program begins in May and runs until October.
