Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social Welfare Law Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Journal

Osgoode Hall Law School of York University

Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in Social Welfare Law

Issue 1: Reimagining Overrepresentation Research: Critical Reflections On Researching The Overrepresentation Of First Nations Children In The Child Welfare System, Vandna Sinha, Ashleigh Delaye, Brittany Orav-Lakaski Apr 2018

Issue 1: Reimagining Overrepresentation Research: Critical Reflections On Researching The Overrepresentation Of First Nations Children In The Child Welfare System, Vandna Sinha, Ashleigh Delaye, Brittany Orav-Lakaski

Journal of Law and Social Policy

This paper builds on the experiences of the first author in doing research on the overrepresentation of First Nations children in child welfare systems in Canada. Six lessons are presented: (1) overrepresentation is an inherently quantitative construct; (2) overrepresentation is an inherently comparative construct; (3) a focus on overrepresentation draws attention to the needs of specific groups, but may obscure the need for broader systemic reform; (4) available data relies on, but incompletely represents, decision-maker perspectives; (5) available data emphasizes point-in-time decisions; and (6) ambiguity in data must be very clearly acknowledged. Building on discussion of these lessons, we explore …

Go to article

Do Us Proud: Poor Women Claiming Adjudicative Space At Cesr, Emily Paradis Jan 2015

Do Us Proud: Poor Women Claiming Adjudicative Space At Cesr, Emily Paradis

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Claiming Our Rights was a feminist participatory action research project based at Sistering, a Toronto drop-in for women facing homelessness. At weekly meetings over the course of eighteen months, members learned about social and economic rights, gave testimony on their lived experiences, and undertook actions to claim their rights. Among other initiatives, the group—which members named FORWARD—contributed a report on women’s homelessness to the 2006 review of Canada by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This paper draws upon observations of the group’s process and in-depth interviews with participants to assess this human rights education methodology. …

Go to article

The Role Of Technology In The Provision Of Poverty Law Services, Lenny Abramowicz Jan 2014

The Role Of Technology In The Provision Of Poverty Law Services, Lenny Abramowicz

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Provides a cross-jurisdictional examination of how technology has been used in legal aid and community legal clinics and questions whether technology has become the tool or the master in the provision of legal aid services. Explores whether technology is playing a positive or negative role in community legal aid clinics by examining the purpose and work of community clinics, and how technology can help or impede the realization of that purpose.

Go to article

From Mothers' Allowance To Mothers Need Not Apply: Canadian Welfare Law As Liberal And Neo-Liberal Reforms, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn Oct 2007

From Mothers' Allowance To Mothers Need Not Apply: Canadian Welfare Law As Liberal And Neo-Liberal Reforms, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In this paper we examine changes in the form and content of Canadian welfare law through a historical, feminist lens using the exemplar of mother-headed families. Our analysis of how the state dealt with sole support mothers in several provinces throughout the twentieth century reveals important continuities, as well as discontinuities, between the past and the present that have shaped and reshaped the lives and experiences of poor women and their children. In doing so, it helps to illuminate how they have been rendered "undeserving" or "never deserving" with the neo-liberal (re)formation of the Keynesian state in Canada.

Go to article

Boldly Going Where No Law Has Gone Before: Call Centres, Intake Scripts, Database Fields, And Discretionary Justice In Social Assistance, Lorne Sossin Jul 2004

Boldly Going Where No Law Has Gone Before: Call Centres, Intake Scripts, Database Fields, And Discretionary Justice In Social Assistance, Lorne Sossin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article focuses on the response of public law to bureaucratic disentitlement. Whether eligibility decisions for social welfare benefits are made on the basis of a face to face interview or telephone intake screening at a call centre, whether the questions are onerous for vulnerable applicants to answer, whether the bureaucratic hurdles can reasonably be surmounted or lead to the de facto exclusion of otherwise eligible applicants, all constitute questions which should be fundamentally intertwined with the question of whether a discretionary decision is legally valid. This is so not only because service delivery models and administrative design may determine …

Go to article

The Empire Of The Lone Mother: Parental Rights, Child Welfare Law, And State Restructuring, Hester Lessard Oct 2001

The Empire Of The Lone Mother: Parental Rights, Child Welfare Law, And State Restructuring, Hester Lessard

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article uses the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in G.(J.) v. New Brunswick to frame a discussion of the historical and ideological character of Canadian child welfare regimes on the nature and experience of women’s citizenship within the liberal political order and, in particular, within the current neo-liberal restructuring of welfare provision. The article also analyzes traditional understandings of the political character of child welfare in terms of state intervention and non-intervention, by placing the state ordering of parent-child relations in the context of larger issues of colonialism, gendered parenting discourses, and the linkage between child neglect and poverty. …

Go to article

Twenty-Five Years Of Dynamic Tension: The Parkdale Community Legal Services Experience, Shelley A.M. Gavigan Jul 1997

Twenty-Five Years Of Dynamic Tension: The Parkdale Community Legal Services Experience, Shelley A.M. Gavigan

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Parkdale Community Legal Services has been the site of initiatives, challenges, and historic accomplishments in the areas of community-based poverty law, community organizing and law reform, and clinical legal education. In this article, the author takes the occasion of the clinic's twenty-fifth anniversary to consider some of the events and issues that shaped Parkdale's history. Drawing on a range of sources, including evaluations and reports, student writing, and scholarly publications, the author examines the issues and debates that PCLS has sparked at Osgoode Hall Law School, and some of the ground it has broken more generally in its work. The …

Go to article

The Spousal Assault Policy: A Critical Analysis, Leah Rachin Jul 1997

The Spousal Assault Policy: A Critical Analysis, Leah Rachin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article examines the complex relationship between PCLS's spousal assault policy and the clinic's mandate to practice poverty law. The author addresses the conflict which arises from the clinic's attempt to reconcile two goals-access to justice for all members of Parkdale's poor community and advocacy in the area of violence against women. The article also examines whether poverty can serve as a catalyst for violent behaviour or whether such a hypothesis is based on classist myths and assumptions. Ultimately, the author concludes that if battering can be linked to poverty, then PCLS (as a poverty law clinic) has an obligation …

Go to article

The Ellis Archives-1972 To 1981: An Early View From The Parkdale Trenches, S. Ronald Ellis Jul 1997

The Ellis Archives-1972 To 1981: An Early View From The Parkdale Trenches, S. Ronald Ellis

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The author was intimately involved with PCLS from 1972 to 1981. Significant extracts from a recently uncovered, personal horde of archival materials--framed by the author's description and explication of the materials' original context--provide old perspectives on a wide range of surprisingly current issues--perspectives which the author believes readers will find still useful. The subject matter includes: the private bar's role in the ultimate success of PCLS and the clinic system; legal aid services; the bar's role in the legal aid system; the need for customized legal services in low-income communities; the role and operation of community based legal clinics; a …

Go to article

The Demystification Of Legal Discourse: Reconceiving The Role Of The Poverty Lawyer As Agent Of The Poor, Cherie Robertson Jul 1997

The Demystification Of Legal Discourse: Reconceiving The Role Of The Poverty Lawyer As Agent Of The Poor, Cherie Robertson

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

By employing traditional methods of legal representation when acting on behalf of those living in poverty, lawyers act to perpetuate the disempowerment of poor people.. While the systemic barriers confronting the poor must be addressed, so too must the power of the poor to help themselves through organization and resistance. The task of the poverty lawyer committed to facilitating the agency of the poor is made difficult by the exclusivity and formalism of legal discourse, the constraints of the Rules of Professional Conduct, and by traditional understandings of the appropriate role of lawyers. However, a reconceptualization of the role of …

Go to article

Safe At Home: Protecting Female Tenants From Violence, Lori A. Pope Jul 1997

Safe At Home: Protecting Female Tenants From Violence, Lori A. Pope

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article deals with the tension for legal aid clinics between a policy of not representing landlords and a policy of acting for abused women rather than their alleged abusers. Many women face violence where they live, which can jeopardize their tenancies. To combat the resulting legal problems effectively, clinics may need to work indirectly or even directly for landlords. Clinics ought also to consider lobbying for changes to legislation to allow tenants to take action directly against other tenants who threaten their safety. Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS), which led the way for other clinics in their adoption of …

Go to article

Clinics In A Cold Climate: Community Law Centres In England And Wales, Roger Smith Jul 1997

Clinics In A Cold Climate: Community Law Centres In England And Wales, Roger Smith

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Legal aid clinics in England and Wales, known as law centres, have struggled since they were set up in the early 1970s. They overcame the initial protests of the private profession, which saw the centres as competition, and established an important presence in social welfare law during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1986, the government began implementing financial cuts to the system. Over the next decade, the increased cuts led to a race towards "contract culture" and the introduction of "franchising" within the legal aid system. The implications of fiscal restraint on the efficiency and the quality of the service …

Go to article

The Dream Is Still Alive: Twenty-Five Years Of Parkdale Community Legal Services And The Osgoode Hall Law School Intensive Program In Poverty Law, Frederick H. Zemans Jul 1997

The Dream Is Still Alive: Twenty-Five Years Of Parkdale Community Legal Services And The Osgoode Hall Law School Intensive Program In Poverty Law, Frederick H. Zemans

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Over twenty-five years have passed since Parkdale Community Legal Services opened its doors in Toronto, changing the face of poverty law and clinical legal education in Ontario. This article details the formative years of the Parkdale clinic and its ongoing partnership with Osgoode Hall Law School. Despite initial opposition from the legal profession the clinic has survived, evolving into an innovative educational tool and delivery model of legal services. The clinic has become an essential component of the mixed Ontario legal aid system and a pattern for other clinics and clinical education programs in Canada. This article documents the considerations …

Go to article

The Legal Advocate And The Questionably Competent Client In The Context Of A Poverty Law Clinic, Diana A. Romano Jul 1997

The Legal Advocate And The Questionably Competent Client In The Context Of A Poverty Law Clinic, Diana A. Romano

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Advocates representing the poor must, above all, take into account the extreme vulnerability of their clients. This challenge is heightened where one suspects that a client may lack the capacity to provide appropriate instructions. This article considers the issue of how competency should be defined and the options available where incompetency is determined. Ultimately, advocacy must include personal empowerment as well as legal representation.

Go to article

The Perils Of Poverty: Prostitutes' Rights, Police Misconduct, And Poverty Law, Ray Kuszelewski, Dianne L. Martin Jul 1997

The Perils Of Poverty: Prostitutes' Rights, Police Misconduct, And Poverty Law, Ray Kuszelewski, Dianne L. Martin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article is divided in two parts. In Part I, Ray Kuszelewski details the history of setbacks in representing street prostitutes faced by community-based initiatives at Parkdale Community Legal Services (PCLS). It is a personal, anecdotal, account of the clinic's evolutionary role in tackling the perils of poverty for street prostitutes. In Part II, Dianne Martin complements the first section by addressing the specific problem of police misconduct. The commentary is historical and theoretical in examining prior efforts at reform and argues for the development of a new, collaborative approach. The context is local and particularized in a community legal …

Go to article

Welfare Reform In The United States, Joel F. Handler Apr 1997

Welfare Reform In The United States, Joel F. Handler

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Advanced countries that are experiencing high unemployment are reconsidering their generous welfare states in light of the American experience. This article sets forth a summary of the principles of the U.S. welfare reform -particularly enforcing work requirements by time-limited welfare-as well as the assumptions, including, principally, that welfare destroys work incentives and that jobs are available for those who want to work. In fact, most welfare recipients have extensive connections to the labour market, but cannot survive on either jobs or welfare. If the reforms are carried out as intended, severe hardship will result. The predicted outcome is that most …

Go to article