Curran: Legal and health literacy are integrally connected
Legal services must be combined with healthcare to reach marginalised groups, a three-year study of an Australian health-justice partnership has found.
Researcher Dr Liz Curran, an associate professor at Nottingham Law School, said “simply offering” legal advice was not enough and support must be “joined up with other services such as healthcare, mental health and social support”.
Dr Curran went on: “Many legal problems, such as debt, housing disputes or benefits issues, are closely linked to poor health. Addressing them early can prevent crises that cost people, and the public purse, far more in the long run.”
“This people-centred approach could help reach those most likely to be excluded from the justice system in the UK, including people with mental health challenges, those experiencing poverty, and communities with longstanding mistrust of public institutions.
“Quick, efficiency-focused reforms will not close the justice gap. When legal services meet people where they are, justice becomes more accessible, more effective and more humane”.
Dr Curran has been studying a health-justice partnership that offers legal support to Aboriginal communities on the borders of Victoria and New South Wales.
She met annually in Australia with Aboriginal people, counsellors, doctors, nurses, financial counsellors, drug and alcohol workers, psychologists and others working with the community.
By the third year of the study, 90% of participants reported improvements in wellbeing after receiving legal support from the health-justice partnership, with reductions in stress and anxiety and increased confidence and engagement.
In her recommendations, Dr Curran said that “in person, place-based, holistic, culturally safe and trauma-informed service delivery” was essential.
“With the current push of information technology companies, governments and the courts towards use of AI and digital interfaces, it is critical that people have recourse to proper in-person, place-based in community expert legal support.
“If people do not trust lawyers and are reticent to seek help because of poor experience, they will resort to free artificial intelligence which in legal matters can be incorrect, fabricated and not tailored to their situation.
“This can lead to significant issues such as loss of claims, being penalised, poor decision-making and problem escalation.”
Dr Curran said legal literacy and health literacy were “integrally connected” and more work needed to be undertaken with “health, allied health and social welfare agencies to demonstrate the value of justice support to expand options” to help people resolve their complex problems.
She recommended that the health-justice partnership she reviewed be expanded, noting that “demand far exceeds capacity”, to include other areas such as family law, child protection, criminal and mental health law and a specialist lawyer in care and protection.
“Local solicitors are at capacity and are often not interested and clients don’t feel safe with many private lawyers due to previous experience or community reticence.”
She recommended that it be replicated, with “adjustments for local exigencies”, on the grounds of its effectiveness as a way of reaching under-served communities.
Craig Taylor, chair of the Albury Wodonga Aboriginal Health Service, which provided the health side of the partnership, commented: “When legal support is embedded within a culturally safe health setting, and when lawyers and health workers operate side-by-side, the outcomes are significant.
“Stress eases. Confidence grows. People feel safe to speak up. Families stabilise. Hope returns.
“The partnership shows that addressing legal issues is not separate from health – it is part of healing. It tackles the structural drivers that sit beneath mental distress, debt, housing instability and family violence.
“I urge governments, funders and system leaders to take this report seriously.”
