Mediation, financial remedies, information provision and legal advice: the post-LASPO conundrum

The near-total collapse in numbers of solicitors providing legal advice and assistance to publicly-funded clients attempting to settle private family law issues through mediation since the legal aid reforms implemented in 2013 raises important questions about how, if at all, clients in mediation can receive legal information and advice other than from lawyers in financial cases following divorce. This article explores, in a preliminary way, this aspect of mediation practice, drawing on small-scale qualitative data from a study conducted shortly prior to the legal aid reforms concerning the settlement of such cases. It explores how mediators then approached their (permissible) function of providing clients with legal information and how they dealt with cases where they felt that the proposed outcome was particularly unfair to one party or unlikely to be endorsed by a court, and asks how mediation practice – and legal practice – may come under pressure to change in this brave new world.The empirical data drawn on in this article were collected during research funded by the Nuffield Foundation, an endowed charitable trust that aims to improve social well-being in the widest sense

Study design, rationale and methods of the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) study: a cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate environmental and human health impacts of a water-sensitive intervention in informal settlements in Indonesia and Fiji

Introduction: Increasing urban populations have led to the growth of informal settlements, with contaminated environments linked to poor human health through a range of interlinked pathways. Here, we describe the design and methods for the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) study, a transdisciplinary randomised trial evaluating impacts of an intervention to upgrade urban informal settlements in two Asia-Pacific countries. Methods and analysis: RISE is a cluster randomised controlled trial among 12 settlements in Makassar, Indonesia, and 12 in Suva, Fiji. Six settlements in each country have been randomised to receive the intervention at the outset; the remainder will serve as controls and be offered intervention delivery after trial completion. The intervention involves a water-sensitive approach, delivering site-specific, modular, decentralised infrastructure primarily aimed at improving health by decreasing exposure to environmental faecal contamination. Consenting households within each informal settlement site have been enrolled, with longitudinal assessment to involve health and well-being surveys, and human and environmental sampling. Primary outcomes will be evaluated in children under 5 years of age and include prevalence and diversity of gastrointestinal pathogens, abundance and diversity of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) genes in gastrointestinal microorganisms and markers of gastrointestinal inflammation. Diverse secondary outcomes include changes in microbial contamination; abundance and diversity of pathogens and AMR genes in environmental samples; impacts on ecological biodiversity and microclimates; mosquito vector abundance; anthropometric assessments, nutrition markers and systemic inflammation in children; caregiver-reported and self-reported health symptoms and healthcare utilisation; and measures of individual and community psychological, emotional and economic well-being. The study aims to provide proof-of-concept evidence to inform policies on upgrading of informal settlements to improve environments and human health and well-being. Ethics: Study protocols have been approved by ethics boards at Monash University, Fiji National University and Hasanuddin University. Trial registration number: ACTRN12618000633280; Pre-results

Lighting the Spark: Reimagining the Statutory Landscape Through the Feminist Legislation Project

Written for students, academics, legislators and policymakers engaged in international women's rights law, gender equality, government accountability and feminist legal theory, this book has tremendous transformative potential to drive ..

Review of exposure draft of the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Bill 2005

An Exposure Draft of the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Bill 2005 (Cth) (the Bill) was released by the Federal Attorney-General on 28 June 2005. The Attorney-General asked the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (the Committee) to review the draft Bill and report by 11 August 2005. The Committee in turn invited community submissions by 15 July 2005. The Bill amends the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (FLA) by implementing a number of recommendations of the 2003 ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’ report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs and subsequent government proposals put forward in the 2004 ‘New Approach to the Family Law System’ discussion paper, with funding being announced in the 2005–2006 Federal Budget. In essence, the changes ‘aim to bring about a cultural shift in how family separation is managed: away from litigation and towards co-operative parenting’. The following comprises a submission made to the Committee responding to the proposed changes, slightly expanded where necessary to provide background information on the proposals

Key mechanisms of a gender and socially inclusive community engagement and participatory design approach in the RISE program in Makassar, Indonesia and Suva, Fiji

Globally, more than one billion people live in urban informal settlements and experience suboptimal access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Participatory approaches are increasingly being promoted in WASH interventions, but the key elements of these approaches are not well-defined. The Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) program launched in 2017 uses a participatory approach to co-design water-sensitive infrastructure with residents of 24 urban informal settlements in Makassar, Indonesia and Suva, Fiji. Our objective was to identify key mechanisms of a gender and socially inclusive participatory approach for engaging diverse people in RISE. We conducted and analysed semi-structured in-depth interviews (IDIs) with 49 RISE program staff; IDIs with 29 residents from RISE settlements in Indonesia and Fiji; and 6 focus group discussions (FGDs) with RISE residents in Fiji in 2020–2021, after participatory design activities were complete. Resident participants were purposively selected for representation of women and men; high and low participation in RISE; and different levels of disability/impairment. The question guides were informed by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), which defines 39 constructs (grouped into five domains) that describe an intervention. The IDI and FGD transcripts were analysed thematically with deductive codes based on the CFIR. For each of the five CFIR domains, the construct that was most relevant to mechanisms for the engagement of diverse people was used for the final analysis. The findings identified several key mechanisms for engaging diverse residents in programs like RISE. Four of these are recommended for future implementation and scale-ups of RISE and similar programs: engaging with residents at the household level (and potentially the individual level); incorporating flexibility and adaptability throughout the program; having a diverse team; and maintaining regular contact and positive rapport between the staff and participants