MORE than $8 million in Commonwealth funding will boost the ACT’s community legal services to assist women, including victim survivors, and people needing mental health support.

Attorney-General of Australia Michaelia Cash announced $8.372 million for the ACT under the federal government’s $2.3 billion National Legal Assistance Partnership 2020-2025 (NLAP).

A bulk of the funding, $2.750 million, will go towards expanding the territory’s Family Advocate and Support Service, which combines free legal advice and support at court for people affected by domestic and family violence.

An additional $1.882 million will go towards supporting the delivery of legal assistance services to vulnerable women and $843,000 will be dedicated to frontline support to address workplace sexual harassment.

The funding will also be allocated to:

• Supporting increased child sexual abuse prosecutions – $0.124 million
• Mental health supervision and debriefing assistance package for staff across the legal assistance sector – $0.240 million
• Additional duty lawyer in Family Violence Unit – $0.480 million
• Domestic Violence Unit enhancement – $0.584M million
• Frontline support to address workplace sexual harassment – $0.843 million
• New Mental Health Justice Clinic – $0.562 million
• Expansion of Parachute Program – $0.441M
• Expansion of legal services to support people experiencing mental health related financial matters – $0.300 million
• Additional state administration dunding – $0.165 million

ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury said the boost will assist vulnerable Canberrans particularly during the challenging times created by the pandemic.

“The collaborative initiatives put forward by the legal assistance sector are high quality and impactful,” said Mr Rattenbury.

“Particularly the specialised Mental Health Justice Clinic and its training partnership with Rebus Theatre, which will provide critical services to people experiencing mental health related legal issues and strengthen the capacity of legal practitioners to support persons with mental health conditions to access the justice system.”