Attorney General Yvette D’ath will launch the cutting edge health and justice resource ‘Law Yarn’ at Wuchopperen at 12:45 pm today.
Law Yarn is a unique resource which supports good health outcomes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Law Yarn, an initiative of community legal service LawRight, will see specially trained Wuchopperen health staff yarn with clients about legal issues which might be affecting them, and connect them to the free on-site legal services delivered by LawRight and Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service.
The health staff will use the highly visual, culturally appropriate Law Yarn tool to help clients feel at ease, and identify and discuss legal problems.
Wuchopperen Chairperson and LawRight lawyer Donnella Mills said health and legal needs are often interlinked.
‘Legal problems with money, housing, court and families will lead to poor health if they are not resolved. Poor health impacts on your capacity to make good decisions and care for your children, for example resulting in engagement with the courts or child protection system.’
‘It is no coincidence Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders – among the most incarcerated people in the world – also have some of the poorest health outcomes in the world.’
Wuchopperen staff are currently being trained to use the resource, with the program being rolled out in the second half of 2018. Law Yarn will run until the end of June 2019 and will then be evaluated by distinguished legal academics Fiona Allison, Chris Cunneen and Melanie Schwartz.
