What happens when people with learning disabilities need advice about the law ?

Paul Swift; Kelley Johnson; Victoria Mason; Nour Shiyyab; Susan Porter; Bristol University

Executive summary Access to legal services is an important aspect of both citizenship and the right to justice. Existing evidence suggests that people with learning disabilities face barriers to accessing legal services. This report presents the findings of a short research study commissioned jointly by the Legal Services Board (LSB), the Legal Services Consumer Panel (LSCP) and Mencap designed to explore the experiences of people with learning disabilities when seeking legal assistance. The study aimed to: • Identify barriers and positive experiences of people with learning disabilities and their families or carers who have used legal services • Identify barriers which may have prevented people with learning disabilities and their families or carers who needed but did not use legal services • Identify good and bad practices in working with people with learning disabilities by services which provide legal advice. The research entailed running 18 focus groups involving a total of 90 people with learning disabilities, conducting 26 interviews with family carers of people with learning disabilities and 9 interviews with legal services professionals. Key findings of the research are: • Very few of the people with learning disabilities who took part in the study had initiated contact with a legal service themselves. Most of those who had done so had used Citizens Advice Bureaux or a solicitor known to their family. People with learning disabilities raised numerous issues which could have led to them seeking legal advice. Some of these were ones affecting all citizens: divorce, wills and probate and alleged criminal behaviour. Others were related to being a citizen with learning disabilities: parenting issues, bullying and hate crime and discrimination. • Family carers also used legal services to make arrangements to secure their disabled relative’s future by making wills and trusts. They were more likely than our learning disabled participants to use a legal service on behalf of a relative to challenge decisions or actions made by a public body, to uphold a relative’s rights or to use the provisions of the Mental Capacity Act. • Most people with learning disabilities were unclear about the role of legal services and did not understand when recourse to legal advice might be considered. They relied upon people they trust to know what to do when confronted with a problem. However, these supporters were not always equipped to recognise the need for legal assistance or how to access a service. • Family carers used websites, helplines and forums provided by national learning disabilities charities, carers’ organisations and support groups and networks to get information and advice about legal matters. They valued advice and information given by other family carers who had experienced similar situations to their own. • Participants in the study reported difficulties in getting specialist advice about those aspects of the law that are particularly relevant to people with learning disabilities, such as community care, welfare rights and public law. • Law centres and legal aid firms were valued for offering services in these areas but concerns were expressed about the future coverage in the shadow of changes to legal aid and reduced public funding for law centres and Citizens Advice Bureaux. • The potential outcomes of using a legal service were not well understood by people with learning disabilities, but were better understood by family carers. The positive effects of getting the right legal assistance were said to be relief, improved quality of life and a sense of empowerment. • The major barriers to getting a legal service were said to be lack of clear pathways to getting the right support, especially for specialist legal services that may not be available locally. Anxiety about the process, fear of consequences arising from taking legal action and the potential costs involved in doing so, especially following changes to legal aid, were all cited as barriers. The lack of accessible advice and information was also an inhibiting factor for people with learning disabilities. • The research highlighted good practice as including legal services that make adjustments such as producing information in accessible formats, being respectful to learning disabled clients, explaining legal terms in plain language and allowing time for meetings. It was suggested that good practice can be promoted through collaboration between legal services and learning disability and carers’ organisations. Conclusions The research confirms the findings of previous research that access to legal services for people with learning disabilities remains problematic. The study adds detail and depth to our understanding of the barriers that they face, but also furnishes some of the potential solutions. It highlights the different needs of people with mild learning disabilities and those with more complex disabilities who rely on others to act on their behalf. Recommendations The report makes recommendations which centre on: • Developing accessible information for people with learning disabilities about the purpose of legal services and how they can be used • Developing information and resources to clarify the routes that family carers and others can take to access specialist legal services on behalf of others • Strengthening the awareness legal professionals have about learning disabilities through professional training and guidance • The promotion of collaborative working between legal services and the social care sector.

What happens when people with learning disabilities need advice about the law ?

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