Mind Australia formed a partnership with Northern Community Legal Centre (NCLC) for the Legally Minded project. The aim of this project was to explore and understand the impact of legal intervention on the lives of people with mental health issues and in particular to understand how legal intervention can improve the wellbeing and quality of life of people with mental ill-health. The project aimed to gain insight into the client perspective on the process when a person experiencing mental ill-health receives legal intervention and how this process impacts on their wellbeing.

The project has involved a number of activities. One activity of this project has been to construct a logic model to demonstrate key components of the legal intervention and the process by which this intervention can lead to short and medium-term outcomes. Another has been building a collaborative partnership between NCLC and Mind through funding legal in-reach to Mind services in the northern suburbs and employing a Mental Health Support Coordinator one day per week for six months at NCLC to provide ongoing coordination and linkages between mental health services and legal services.

A final key activity was to undertake a brief research program to explore the perceived impact of legal intervention on the lives of people experiencing mental ill-health. Recent clients at NCLC were invited to join the research with a range of client experiences and legal issues, including fines, family violence and trauma. This report presents the completed research findings and discussion.