Your Story turns three: Our impact

Your Story Disability Legal Support three-year data snapshot (2019-2022)

In our first three years…

We received 7,172 calls, provided 10,044 legal services, and delivered 801 legal education activities to the community.
We supported thousands of people, including many people with disability and their carers and families, to access our free legal support and other services, and safely share their stories and ideas for change with the Disability Royal Commission.
When possible, we travelled extensively – from Bunbury (WA) to Barcaldine (Qld), Malmsbury (Vic) to Manyallaluk (NT), Port Macquarie (NSW) to Port Augusta (SA), Gawanggal (ACT) to Geeveston (Tas), and everywhere in between – to raise awareness about our service and deliver face-to-face legal advice. We also visited prisons, youth detention centres, mental health facilities, group homes and remote communities across Australia.

Read more highlights from our first three years below.

We received 7172 calls to the Infoline and 838 website and email enquiries, with calls more than doubling in 2021-22.
Our Infoline team provided 3825 information services about how to access the Disability Royal Commission, our service and legal financial assistance.
They also made 518 referrals to other services, including the Disability Royal Commission and counselling and advocacy services.
In November 2020, we established a Prison Line to receive calls from people with disability in youth detention and correctional centres. Between 30 November 2020 and 30 June 2022, we received 1662 calls from people in prison.
In total, the Infoline provided 4343 information and referral services, and ongoing assistance to 2750 people.

Our lawyers provided 10,044 legal services. These included legal advice and support preparing submissions, with private sessions and at public hearings. We also connected clients with counselling, advocacy and other legal support.
Our Aboriginal Legal Service lawyers worked with community-controlled organisations and provided legal advice and support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, people in prison, and people living in remote and very remote communities.
When it’s been safe to do so, we travelled throughout Australia to run legal clinics and provide face-to-face advice in a way that worked for our clients, including at offices, community venues, homes, expos, mental health facilities, youth detention centres, and Royal Commission events.

We delivered 801 legal education activities with a total estimated audience size of 3.5 million. These included presentations, information sessions, morning and afternoon teas, expo stalls, webinars, and media interviews.
We also created 171 community legal education resources, such as factsheets, brochures and podcasts in various languages, videos with audio, Auslan and captions, and Easy Read guides.
We launched an accessible webinar series to provide a platform for people with disability and supporters to discuss topical issues, share their insights and ideas, and access legal education, and to raise awareness of the Royal Commission and our service. We have since hosted a range of webinars, focusing on topics like safety, gender and disability, and autism and employment.
We worked with our partners to spread the word about the Disability Royal Commission and the free supports available to diverse communities, including people at risk of or experiencing homelessness, the Deafblind community, First Nations communities, multicultural communities, and the LGBTIQA+ community.

This data is for the period 16/9/2019 to 30/6/2022.