The Law Foundation of Ontario is looking for innovative ways to improve access to legal information and advice for persons who don’t speak English or French or who live in rural or remote areas. The project team has completed its formal consultation and is developing ideas to recommend to the Foundation. During this plenary session, the project leads will describe their preliminary findings and seek your feedback before they submit their report in November.

Presenters: Karen Cohl, George Thomson

This workshop will look at strategies for providing legal information to these historically excluded communities. Presenters will talk about their experiences creating culturally sensitive resources, using community media, producing materials in multiple languages, and doing information workshops.

Presenters: Alexandra Hickey, Raine Liliefeldt, Ginny Santos, Yedida Zalik

Methods and strategies that are effective for delivering legal information to people in urban and densely populated areas often do not work in rural and remote areas. In this workshop, panellists will discuss innovative and effective strategies for reaching rural and isolated communities.

Presenters: Deborah Doherty, Susan Irwin, George Thomson

Women who leave abusive partners face enormous legal challenges. This workshop will focus on successful legal information resources for survivors of violence. You will also hear about the effect of trauma on the ability to learn and to access legal information.

Presenters: Carol Barkwell, Wendy Komiotis, Susan McDonald

People with disabilities need access to accurate, understandable legal information, but finding good formats and delivery methods can be challenging and expensive. In this workshop, you will hear about strategies used by some of the leaders in this field.

Presenters: Michele Leering, Ivana Petricone, Lynda Roy

Creating accessible legal information is not easy, especially if your clients find reading difficult. This workshop will introduce the basic principles of clear language. Learn tips and discover tools to help you write and design legal information for your readers.

Presenter: Tannis Atkinson

Needs assessments and evaluation tools can help small organizations provide effective legal information and education to their communities. Panellists will offer practical strategies for identifying information needs and for evaluating what works.

Presenters: Gayle Broad, Susan McDonald, Mary Stratton

This workshop will explore innovative ways to deliver legal information to young people. You will hear about initiatives in community legal education as well as in other sectors, and you will have an opportunity to share your own experiences, challenges, and successes.

Presenters: Michelle Hamilton-Page, Raine Liliefeldt, Martha Mackinnon

Are you looking for practical tips on developing and delivering effective community legal education workshops? Find out which techniques work when communicating legal information to adults, and which ones don’t.

Presenter: Margaret Capes

When not portrayed on TV as fast-paced and sensational, law is often seen as dry words on dusty pages. But the law affects people in their real lives, often in dramatic ways. At this workshop, you will discover popular education techniques for making legal information "come alive".

Presenters: Emily Chan, Sarah McCoubrey, SH/IM/E/HIM

Online training can provide an opportunity to learn more about the law in a flexible and accessible environment. At this workshop, you will hear about PovNetU, a user-friendly, online training resource for community workers and advocates, and about Springtide's online course for front-line violence against women workers.

Presenters: Penny Goldsmith, Marsha Sfeir

Need ideas on using the Internet to enhance your community legal education work? At this introductory workshop, you will have a chance to identify your online needs and to hear about simple tools and strategies for reaching specific communities and connecting with other organizations.

Presenter: Phillip Djwa

The Law Society of Upper Canada and Pro Bono Law Ontario are partners in the Ontario Civil Legal Needs Project. The goal of this project is to identify obstacles faced by low and middle-income Ontarians to obtaining meaningful access to justice. The project has three phases:
• a large-scale survey with low and middle-income Ontarians;
• focus groups with front-line legal and social service providers; and
• a mapping of the existing legal service resources promoting access to civil justice that are available to low and middle-income Ontarians.

Community organizations that provide services to low-income and disadvantaged people, including information about their legal rights and how to exercise them, are well positioned to provide input on this project based on their everyday experiences and expertise. We hope that you will join us to provide feedback on:

• factors that currently affect the ability of low and middle-income Ontarians to access legal information and education and other legal services;
• issues of importance to people with low and middle-incomes who face multiple barriers to the justice system, including people who speak neither French nor English as a first language, people with disabilities, and people who are racialized, Aboriginal, LGBT, immigrants and newcomers, or elderly;
• public legal education and information materials and services most commonly accessed through community organizations; and
• effective ways of connecting with community organizations that provide legal information and education and other legal and social services to low and middle-income Ontarians.

By helping people understand and assert their legal rights, public legal education equips communities to organize for change. Panellists will describe how public legal education can empower disadvantaged and racialized communities.

Presenters: Mary Lou Fassel, Deena Ladd, Hamdi Mursal, Nan Normand

This workshop will showcase innovative public legal education initiatives in rural and urban Aboriginal communities. You will have an opportunity to learn about collaboration and leadership in developing appropriate public legal education.

Presenters: Claudia Belda, R. Jack Falkins

Do you work in a small, resource-stretched community organization? Are you feeling overwhelmed by legal information: brochures, DVDs, web sites? At this facilitated discussion, you will have a chance to talk about the supports you need to deliver effective legal information.

Facilitator: Pamela Cross

Creating accessible legal information is not easy, especially if your clients find reading difficult. This workshop will introduce the basic principles of clear language. Learn tips and discover tools to help you write and design legal information for your readers.

Presenter: Tannis Atkinson

Racialized communities in Ontario face many barriers. At this workshop, presenters who have used community legal education to fight racism will talk about ways of integrating racial justice perspectives into your community legal education work.

Presenters: Zahra Dhanani, Avvy Go, Uzma Shakir

After taking the first steps online, your organization may be encountering new issues and challenges. Come and learn about advanced online tools and strategies that you can use in your community legal education work.

Presenter: Phillip Djwa

Collaboration with community partners is a key to creating effective community legal education and information programs. Panellists will talk about innovative resources and programs that they have developed and share the ideas behind these initiatives.

Presenters: Fatima Ahmad, Lisa Cirillo, Fiona MacCool

Ontario’s first French Language Services Commissioner, François Boileau, will share his thoughts and insights on the role of small, resource-stretched organizations in providing a range of services, including community legal education, to Francophone members of their community, and how organizations can provide, or begin to provide, those services.

Speaker: François Boileau

Increasingly, legal information tools and programs are being developed to help people handle complex legal issues on their own or with assistance. In this session, you will hear about a national research study, a court-based supported self-help centre, and a legal information project training front-line workers whose clients face the "sharp edges" of poverty.

Presenters: Margaret Capes, Ab Currie, Toby Young

What we heard: Linguistic and Rural Access to Justice (closing comments from Karen Cohl and George Thomson)

Wrap up by conference hosts