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Implementation of the Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016: Social workers’ experiences
Get PDFThe Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 was enacted by the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2016. The first phase of the Act came into operation during 2019 and includes provisions for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). When fully implemented this legislation will integrate mental capacity and mental health legislation into a single piece of legislation, for people aged 16 years and over. Given the recent introduction of Trust Panels as a new mechanism for DoLS, this study is the first of its kind. This small-scale exploratory study is a survey of 33 social workers who have made DoLS applications to Trust Panels. The findings illustrate social workers’ experiences of applying for Trust Panel authorisation for interventions amounting to deprivation for liberty with adults who lack the capacity to make the relevant decisions.
The findings report on the social workers’ level of experience in undertaking applications, their views about training for Mental Capacity Act work, and their perceived confidence levels for this work. The factors that have helped or hindered practitioners are also highlighted. The data collection was undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact of changes to work practices during this time are acknowledged. The study makes recommendations for further developing training, practice, and research
Criminal Sentencing in the CRPD Era: Lessons from Singapore
Get PDFOn 27 April 2022, Singapore executed Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, a 33-year-old Malaysian who was convicted of trafficking 42.72 grams of heroin. His execution was carried out despite calls from United Nations (UN) human rights experts, including the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, for the government to commute his death sentence inter alia on the basis that Nagaenthran did not have access to procedural accommodations for his disability during his interrogation and death sentences should not be carried out on persons with serious psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. Nagaenthran’s execution has put Singapore’s criminal legal system, particularly in respect of its treatment of offenders with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, under international scrutiny
Peace and Conflict Transformation Through the Clinical Legal Education Programme
Get PDFClinical Legal Education came to Nigeria, first, as a solution to remedy the effects of epileptic access to justice and, further, to develop law students’ professional skills through rendering free legal services to indigent members of society. It was not received into the Nigerian legal pedagogy without some level of resistance, however with consistent lobbying it was eventually incorporated. The Clinical Legal Education program began with just five pilot university law clinics to implement the components of Clinical Legal Education. Despite this relatively small number, the program was able to satisfy its immediate objectives, pending other universities that could not resist the need to benefit from the program inculcated it into their legal pedagogy. Consequently, Nigeria now has 21 active university law clinics rendering free legal services to indigent persons and teaching community members about their legal rights. Offering free legal services and educating community members about their legal rights are not the end of the benefits of Clinical Legal Education. There are many other benefits that are derived from the Clinical Legal Education program and in this paper, as way of just one example, I examine the ways in which clinical legal education is helping to curb communal violence
Clinical Legal Education for Gender Justice in Europe
Get PDFGenerated directly from the field, this paper elaborates on the knowledge shared during the process of a research project called LAWGEM (New Quality in Education for Gender Equality – Strategic Partnership for the Development of Master’s Study Program on LAW and GENDER) in an effort to develop a Gender Equality Legal Clinic to sensitise students about gender issues within legal education in Europe. The paper elaborates on the experience of two countries, Sweden and Serbia through discussing the challenges in achieving gender justice. Finally, it introduces Gender Equality Legal Clinic as a learning outcome of LAWGEM project for legal pedagogical purposes
Feeding up and Feeding Back: Exploring the Value of Peer Learning through a Law Clinic setting
Get PDFStudents continually have conversations about what they are learning in their studies. Often without realising it, they take part in peer learning though the process of getting stuck on a problem and asking another student about it. The conversation that follows is part of the learning experience where both students work to understand and resolve the issue, sharing the burden and making it enjoyable. Whilst there is undoubtedly a benefit in peer learning, replicating the informal conversations between students in a structured learning environment can be daunting to teachers and students alike. We are two law clinicians in two very different law clinic settings. Our previous reflections on our use of feedback led us to recognise it as a form of communication, which builds upon a foundation of good relationships and an atmosphere of trust in our teaching spaces. It is in this learning environment that we have seen peer learning take place with our students, in the form of peer review and peer feedback with positive results: peer review has led to discussions about what constitutes a good piece of work and to take ownership of the cases they are working on, and peer feedback has supported a process of evaluation in the context of assessing whether the work is of the professional standard required. This study explores the value of peer learning, evaluating what students working in our law clinics actually think about it. Drawing upon our experience of small group face to face teaching we will look at the impact of remote learning resulting from Covid 19 on the student experience, and how students manage to develop and sustain peer learning. Understanding whether peer learning is considered useful, or whether the distrust towards peer review and peer feedback in particular remains, will, we hope, lead to more discussions about how peer learning can be developed in a variety of teaching spaces
State of the Nation: 10 Years of Entrepreneurial Law Clinic Supervision in the United Kingdom
Get PDFIn July 2012, I delivered my first conference paper at the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Conference: ‘Taking care of business: a new clinician’s experience of supervising and developing commercial case work.’ The audience was sparse. When the chair asked for questions, the room echoed in silence. A few years later, I was called a ‘danger’ to clinical legal education because my students provided free advice to entrepreneurs. The service was criticised as being at odds with the social justice mission of clinical legal education. I remember it being a lonely time. Only a handful of UK entrepreneurial law clinics existed, and we received little attention in research literature.
A decade on, I am still taking care of the Business and Commercial Law Clinic at Northumbria Law School. Much has changed. We have seen the rapid development of commercially focused law clinics across the UK, with a diverse range of approaches.
In this article I will make a major contribution to our understanding of the state of the nation for entrepreneurial law clinics in the United Kingdom today. Using elements of narrative inquiry and autobiographical writing, I will (a) reflect on my journey as one of the first UK entrepreneurial law clinic supervisors, (b) report on the increasing number and models of law clinics offering advice to businesses, and (c) argue for the further development of research in this distinctive and flourishing area of clinical practice
The Law in the Community Model of Clinical Legal Education: Assessing the Impact on Key Stakeholders
Get PDFThis article examines a model of clinical legal education where a university law school works in partnership with an external organisation. The partnership enables law students to attend the offices of Citizens Advice during their law degree and under the guidance and supervision of their staff, advise their service users on a range of legal issues. Using data collected from a research study involving student focus groups and semi structured interviews with the Citizens Advice supervisors, this research contributes to the understanding of whether, and how, this model impacts upon law students, Citizens Advice and the local community. This study contributes to the knowledge on the value of this model of clinical legal education from both a pedagogical and social justice perspective. The research raises questions as to how a partnership between a university and external organisation can overcome challenges, ensuring an equivalent clinical experience for all students and that effective feedback is provided to students. The results indicate that there are a clear set of pedagogical benefits to the students and benefits to Citizens Advice with regards to the service they can provide to the local community. The authors argue that this module enables students to engage in transformative and impactful work, whilst obtaining first-hand experience of the access to justice challenges (and other socio-economic issues) faced by their local community. The study will be of interest to clinics who incorporate, or intend to incorporate, an externship model in their curriculum, both in Europe and beyond
Lessons Learned from Remote Delivery: Supervision and the Student Experience
Get PDFThis article considers the effect of the shift to virtual delivery of clinical legal education (CLE) that was necessitated by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on students and the lessons learned from students’ perspectives, especially regarding supervision, for clinical best practice going forward. Much of the recent scholarship on the effects of the pandemic has focused on the clients of clinical programs and the challenges of responding to heightened client service needs at a time of economic dislocation and widespread movement restrictions. This was a particular issue in the city of Melbourne, Australia, where residents faced some of the longest and most onerous lockdowns in the world. This article focuses on students of clinical programs and the role of supervision practices in facilitating students’ learning during this challenging period
