*NEW* LinC Volunteering Opportunities with the Strategic Social Justice Clinic and the Immigration and Asylum Clinic at the Central England Law Centre
Warwick Law in the Community (LinC) is pleased to collaborate with the Central England Law Centre (CELC) to offer students exciting volunteering opportunities with the Strategic Social Justice Clinic (SSJC) as well as the Immigration and Asylum Clinic (I&A) this 2022/23 academic year.
Students are welcome to join our MS Teams information session on Monday 3 October 2022 between 2-3pm to learn more about LinC and this year’s opportunities with the team at CELC. Law School students will be sent the MS Teams meeting link via email.
If you have any questions about the opportunities, please email WarwickLinC@warwick.ac.uk
Eligibility
Opportunities with the Strategic Social Justice Clinic are open to all Warwick law students, both undergraduate and postgraduate.
Volunteering with the Immigration and Asylum clinic is open to Warwick law students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, except first year undergraduates.
Previous volunteers for the SSJC (in previous years this was called the ‘Strategic Public Law Clinic’) or I&A Clinic are not able to apply again for the same opportunity. However, students who participated for SSJC previously can apply for I&A and similarly, those who took part in the I&A clinic can apply for the SSJC opportunity.
What’s involved?
Students on the Immigration and Asylum Clinic are expected to commit 3-5 hours per week during term time, during both terms 1 and 2. Students will be expected to attend the Central England Law Centre in Coventry once a fortnight. In the week that they are not attending students will work on client cases through our remote SharePoint site.
Students volunteering with the Strategic Social Justice Clinic are expected to commit 3-5 hours per week during term time in either term 1 or term 2 (if shortlisted you will be asked which term you have a preference for). Students will be required to attend regular, small, and large team meetings on campus. Meeting times will be determined by group availability.
Further information about the work of each clinic can be found below.
How to apply
Students should submit their CV along with a cover letter (no more than 300 words) in one document to WarwickLinC@warwick.ac.uk clearly stating in their email which opportunity they are applying for.
For students interested in both opportunities, separate applications should be submitted. A preference for one can be expressed in your email when submitting the application. Please note that those applying for both the SSJC and I&A will not be accepted for both opportunities.
The deadline for applications from Undergraduates is Thursday 6 October 2022 by 5pm.
The deadline for applications from Postgraduates is Monday 10 October 2022 by 10am.
Applicants shortlisted will be notified and an invitation for interview will be sent on:
- Friday 7 October for the Strategic Social Justice Clinic
- Monday 10 October for Immigration and Asylum Clinic
(Please note: if invited for interview, we will ask whether you have any reasonable adjustments we can make to help you to attend the interview, or to help you perform at your best).
Group Interviews will take place on:
- Strategic Social Justice Clinic: On Campus on Tuesday 11 October (To be confirmed)
- Immigration and Asylum Clinic: At the Central England Law Centre, Coventry on Wednesday 12 October
Successful applicants will be required to attend an induction on:
- Date to be confirmed for Strategic Social Justice Clinic
- Friday 14 October on campus (time to be confirmed) or Monday 17 October online (time to be confirmed) for Immigration and Asylum Clinic
Immigration and Asylum Clinic
We are delighted that this year we have expanded the I&A Clinic, which has created more opportunities for students to volunteer. Students will be working with the Immigration and Asylum team at Central England Law Centre. The team has solicitors working in Birmingham and Coventry and this role will be with the Coventry team.
Students will be working to help client’s obtain legal aid through our Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) clinic, so they can be assisted with their immigration applications/appeals. Students will receive training in some aspects of immigration law, particularly around making human rights applications and will certainly improve their interviewing and drafting skills as well as knowledge of legal aid. Students will also take instructions from clients requiring one off immigration advice and will research and draft advice under supervision. A few students will also work with Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) taking enquiries in relation to citizenship and leave to remain applications for children. Full training will be provided.
We will also be asking students to undertake diverse and ad hoc research tasks for ongoing cases, and we intend for all of you to be working on at least one appeal matter, with the expectation that you will be able to attend the First-tier Tribunal or the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, together with one of our solicitors or counsel. You may even be asked to help draft a skeleton argument!
It is important that students are fully committed to the placement as it enables us to provide more legal advice to more people. Students should certainly have an interest in social welfare law and perhaps be thinking of an alternative legal career!
Qualifying Work Experience for the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)
Please note that hours volunteered for the Immigration and Asylum Clinic can be counted towards your two years of necessary Qualifying Work Experience as part of the SQE.
Strategic Social Justice Clinic
The SSJC are undertaking new projects this year that students can get involved with, these include:
Term One, 2022/23
Supporting care leavers to access their rights
Most of us expect to continue to receive the support of our family far beyond the date on which we reach the age where, legally, we will be treated as adults. Young people who have been in the ‘care’ of the local social services authority often have a very different experience.
In January 2022 Ofsted published findings from an online survey of young people in care and care leavers to explore whether the help they got when getting ready to leave care was what they needed, and how involved they were in the decisions made about their future. Ofsted found that more than a third of care leavers felt that they left care too early, often because the move out of care happened abruptly and they were not ready for all the sudden changes. Of those who did feel that they left care at the right time, not all felt they had the required skills to live more independently. Many care leavers reported that they were not taught essential skills, such as how to shop, cook or manage money.
Two of the key rights that care leavers have is to a ‘pathway plan’ based on an assessment of their individual needs and to a ‘Personal Adviser’, appointed by the local social services authority, who supports them, potentially until they are 25. There are regulations and guidance setting out how this should work in practice. One of the recommendations made by Ofsted in response to their findings was that care leavers should know what they are legally entitled to and helped to access support after they leave care.
Project aims
The aim of this SSJC project is to develop a tool which will help local organisations who are in contact with care leavers to identify whether they have the benefit of the planning and support they are entitled to and to help them access legal advice when needed.
It is anticipated that students will have the opportunity to participate in:
- meetings with care-experienced young people and those working with care leavers
- researching relevant legal rights;
- translating that material into a tool useable by non-lawyers in their work with young people;
- considering how the work might be used to monitor and influence local policy and practice in the performance of the local authority’s statutory responsibilities.
Term Two, 2022/23
The Strategic Social Justice Clinic will embark on new projects in Term Two. One of those projects is likely to be a new phase of the Care Leavers project, focusing on testing and evaluating the Tool developed by students in Term One.
The other project is being developed with the Law Centre to focus on a new and topical area of Welfare Law. Further details will be available shortly.