Members about the Network of free legal aid providers in the field of child rights

If someone who needs a free legal information and advice calls the Child Rights Centre, on the other end of the line he or she will hear the voice of lawyers that work as providers of free legal aid. Jelena is one of them. She is also the administrator of the online platform created for the members of the Network of free legal aid providers in the field of child rights.

As of March 2015, when the service for free legal aid was formalised at Child Rights Centre, there are around 30 citizens monthly addressing the service, seeking aid in realisation of child rights in the domains of educational, health and social protection.

In order to successfully respond to all demands and challenges which this responsible job bears, Jelena has, along with the other members of the network, attended and actively participated in trainings particularly designed to contribute to the strengthening of the capacities of the Network members.

According to Jelena, the biggest strength of these trainings lies in carefully selected experts who were in the role of the lecturer.

“Each training was handled by a very skilled person with years of experience in the field of educational, social and health protection. On the other hand, the participants had enough time to prepare for each lecture, devise concrete questions that interest them and every time there was enough room for discussing various topics and solving specific cases from practice. Then the lecturers would, thanks to their own experience, hand out concrete and concise answers and examples while stating all of the relevant legislative institutions for given cases, as well as legal and sublegal acts. All of this is very useful in the direct work with the parties, because now we can direct them more easily to authorised institutions and give them more detailed information that mean a lot to them”.

Another advantage that Jelena states is mutual experience and knowledge exchange between the members of the network. “Trainings were, naturally, an ideal opportunity to get to know each other, talk and strengthen our cooperation. So now, when we get a call from someone from some other part of Serbia, we can direct our clients to their local services and organisations for free legal aid much more easily, while some of the other network members are more specialised in the specific area and we can ask for their advice”.

As part of her engagement in the Child Rights Centre, Jelena also works on the maintenance of the online platform to which all of the members of the network are connected and through which they get all the important information through shared documents (training presentations, professional papers, publications, etc.). In addition, there are discussions opened where the free legal aid providers can initiate a topic or ask questions, and other members, lawyers, attorneys give suggestions and advice on how to act appropriately on a specific case. “All of this makes this platform an excellent tool for continuous learning and a database to which we can go back anytime we have doubts and questions”, Jelena added.

Boris Stupar, representing the city administration of Kikinda, is one of the members of the network of providers of free legal aid. He has worked in this city administration from 2012 on activities related to the providing free legal aid and patient counseling.

Montly, Boris gets asked for help by 90-100 citizens on an average, mostly about getting legal aid in the field of legal support, divorce proceedings, performing or relieving one of parental rights, establishing or disputing the fatherhood.

Having in mind the nature of his job, Boris thinks that the trainings organised by the Child Rights Centre, all with the goal of empowering providers of free legal aid, were of immense help in his everyday work. Considering the fact that he advises patients, the training that referred to the position of a child in the health care system was of great help because he got answers to many unsolved questions.

“Each of the trainings held was exceptionally good and necessary to providers of free legal aid so that our services could be better and of bigger quality. Each training was meaningful and well thought out. Apart from meeting the other members of the network, it was very useful that we reviewed our previously acquired skills and that we learned many new things and acquired new skills which we could immediately and practically apply through the workshops. The lecturers of all trainings were exceptionally qualified, correct, they answered all of our questions and clarified any controversial areas”, Boris explained and added that the biggest advantage of the training was developing a sense that every problem should be approached from the perspective of the rights of a child.

Considering the fact that Boris is the only one in the city administration of Kikinda who is working on the operations related to giving legal aid and that he does not have colleagues with whom he can consult, he finds help and solutions to dilemmas at the online platform formed for the needs of the members of the Network. “The platform is exceptionally useful because that is where many important documents and papers are published, done by people who work in the field of the protection of child rights in practice. It gives us the possibility to learn many new things, to exchange opinions with other members of the network, while many colleagues publish on the platform the new forms of indictments, suggestions, and definitely, with all that it is offered, we can easily come to a solution to a problem”.

After the trainings were carried out, local promotional activities were organised so that the interested members of the network could point out to relevant participants the importance of legal aid adjusted to children. In Kikinda, Boris did that through meetings conducted with the representatives of key institutions relevant for the protection of children. The goal of meetings held was that the members of the network could introduce themselves in their local communities as competent and empowered providers of free legal aid and as representatives of the network of providers of free legal aid in the domain of child rights. For that reason Boris has visited a preschool institution, an elementary school and a high school, a court of general jurisdiction, social services office, the children’s ward of the general hospital and the children ward of the clinic, and talked with the directors of those institutions. “All of the participants showed great interest, and I came across the approval of what the Child Rights Centreand I do in the field of the protection of child rights. I introduced myself and my capabilities, which grew after the trainings that I’ve attended, and at the same time I mentioned to my collocutors that every problem can be solved in cooperation with the Child Rights Centre because they are in contact with a big number of experts from different fields”, Boris described briefly about establishing his first contact with the representatives of the institutions in his city. The city administration of Kikinda and the local social services centre, on the other hand, have a long established cooperation and together they solve problems that revolve around the matters of violence, performing or relieving one of parental rights. There is hope that, after the meetings heldand Boris’s competence presented, they will establish an equally successful cooperation with other key institutions in Kikinda.

One of the members of the network for providing free legal assistance is the Law clinic for child rights and family law at the Law School of the UNION University in Belgrade.

For two years now Jelena Hadzic provides a free legal aid in these clinics. Thanks to the recommendations of the professors from this school who have directed her to the trainings of the Child Rights Centre, she found her preferred area of activity.

“All of the trainings have been very useful because they included the most important fields from which the attorneys need the extra knowledge, they are focused on questions with which we come across frequently in our everyday practice”, Jelena happily commented and also added that the additional advantages of the trainings are viewed in the fact that the providers of the free legal aid met, connected and thanks to the online platform can now easily, in case of any doubt, discuss with their colleagues, share their opinions and advice, hear about different cases and learn something new.

Given the fact that citizens personally come for legal aid to the Law clinic for child rights and family law at the Law School of the UNION University, the communication skills training was very useful for Jelena. “Thanks to this training we have improved our approach and way of leading the conversation with our clients, especially with children. We got specific advice and guidelines on how to interact with clients so that they don’t feel threatened, how to make them feel relaxed and how to encourage them to tell us the key information. On the other hand, it is very important to know at which speed we will handle the conversation and how to guide it so that everyone would succeed in getting help, to comply with the appointed time of the meetings, with the priority to maximally and efficiently use the time of every party”.

From her experience in providing free legal aid, as the most common reason for approaching their service, Jelena notes divorce proceedings, therefore most often they give advice in relation to the custody over children, property sharing, taking children outside the country etc. “People often don’t have any information about which services they should talk to or which law protects them, and they often found themselves in the situation where they had already visited various institutions, and were in the state of despair because they didn’t know which step they should make next. That’s when they often approach us for advice, and when we tell them about additional resources, additional possibilities, just that information means a lot to them. It’s not rare that the clients return to the clinic happy and grateful because they succeeded completing a dispute successfully, which to the students and providers of free legal aid means a lot because they see that they have done something useful”.