Working with Lived Experience
Learn about Community Legal WA’s work to centre the voices, knowledge and leadership of people who have experienced legal problems and sought help.
The Lived Experience Legal Assistance Change Project
The Lived Experience Legal Assistance (LELA) Change Project is a Community Legal WA initiative funded by Lotterywest and the Department of Justice. This project is about making sure the legal assistance system is shaped not only by professionals and policy, but also by the people who use it.
People with lived experience of legal need — including people who have faced vulnerability, disadvantage, or barriers to getting help — bring essential insight into what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to change. Their knowledge helps services become more welcoming, more effective, and more responsive to the realities of people’s lives. As the legal assistance sector continues to evolve, this project creates meaningful ways for lived experience voices to help guide that change.
Walking together through co-design
The project will work with People with Lived Experience to:
- build the capacity of legal assistance services to engage People with Lived Experience and to co-design their services to improve outcomes for the people accessing their services.
- enable People with Lived Experience to inform and help shape coming reforms, ensuring that the legal assistance sector is trauma-informed and designed for people experiencing vulnerability and disadvantage.
Better Outcomes
When lived experience knowledge is included, services are more likely to meet people’s real needs.
By learning from lived experience movements and approaches used in other sectors, we are helping to build a legal assistance system that:
- is easier to access and understand
- feels safer and more respectful
- responds to the whole person, not just the legal issue
This work supports better social and legal outcomes for people facing vulnerability and disadvantage, while also strengthening the way services listen, learn and improve.
