Over the past year, Southside Justice has partnered with a VincentCare family violence refuge to ensure victim-survivors can access free, trauma-informed legal support. Through our partnership, every victim-survivor entering refuge is offered a free Legal Health Check, an approach that proactively uncovers legal issues that may otherwise go unaddressed.
Why Legal Health Checks?
We know that victim-survivors of family violence experience serious and intersecting legal issues that impact their safety, financial security, housing, and long-term recovery. Through asking clear, accessible questions, Legal Health Checks offer a proactive approach to help identity, prioritise and address legal issues that clients may not recognise as legal or urgent.
The model brings legal support into the refuge environment, a trusted space where people are more likely to feel safe to engage. This is especially valuable for victim-survivors experiencing trauma, who may not yet recognise their legal problems or be ready to seek legal help.
Importantly, Legal Health Checks support ongoing engagement rather than a one-off intervention. Legal assistance can continue throughout a person’s time in refuge and beyond, with supported referrals to specialist legal services where additional support is needed.
Key outcomes
Over the 12-month project, 15 victim-survivors received a Legal Health Check, with 12 requiring ongoing legal representation and support. On average, each client was experiencing 5.3 separate legal issues, highlighting the complex challenges many survivors face while rebuilding their lives.
Most legal issues related to family violence and family law matters, including intervention orders, parenting arrangements and property settlements. Clients also sought support with fines, debt, tenancy issues, victim compensation and accessing financial assistance schemes.
The impact has been significant.
We helped clients extend Family Violence Intervention Orders, navigate family law matters, obtain passports for children in difficult family violence circumstances, resolve tenancy issues and secure more than $11,000 in withdrawn fines through the Family Violence Scheme. Clients consistently reported feeling safer, more informed and more confident after receiving legal support.
The partnership also strengthened the capability of refuge staff. By providing training, secondary consultations and ongoing collaboration, we increased staff confidence in identifying legal issues and referring clients for specialist legal assistance. At the end of the project, all participating staff reported improved legal knowledge and greater confidence supporting clients with legal needs.
The success of this partnership reinforces what we already know: when legal support is embedded within trusted community services, people are more likely to access help early, resolve problems before they escalate, and build safer, more stable futures.
Our thanks
This work was inspired by Peninsula Community Legal Centre (PCLC) and their pioneering partnership with Emerge Support. Their model demonstrated the power of bringing Legal Health Checks into trusted refuge environments, creating earlier pathways to support and better outcomes for victim-survivors.
Our deep appreciation to the dedicated VincentCare refuge team, whose trust and collaboration make this partnership possible.
We are thrilled to be continuing this work for a further three years thanks to the ongoing support of Equity Trustees and the W.C.F. Thomas Charitable Trust. This renewed funding will allow us to deepen our presence, strengthen the evidence base for embedded legal services, and work alongside partners across the community legal sector to expand and improve this model of care.
