Strategic Plan
ARCH Disability Law Centre: A Vision Forward
A Strategic Plan 2007-2010
ARCH Disability Law Centre is an Ontario specialty legal clinic dedicated to defending and advancing the equality rights of people with disabilities. Recognizing the dignity and worth of all people with disabilities, ARCH promotes social justice for people with disabilities and their realization of equality of opportunities and full participation in all aspects of society. In 2005, the ARCH membership approved a new name for the organization. We are now called ARCH Disability Law Centre. Our vision, however, remains constant. ARCH’s Values and Principles and Mission Statement are available online at www.archdisabilitylaw.ca.
Background to the Strategic Planning Process
In 2001, ARCH undertook a strategic planning exercise to determine the goals, priorities and future directions for ARCH. At that time, our goal was to assess the work being done, the balance of our activities, and the allocation of ARCH’s resources. Over the past six years, ARCH has matured as an organization and we have gone a long way to successfully achieve the following nine goals set out in our 2001 Strategic Plan.
Program goals:
- Provide effective, comprehensive summary advice in a timely manner.
- Select (according to established criteria) and effectively litigate test cases which advance the rights of people with disabilities.
- Advance the rights of people with disabilities by influencing the nature, direction and implementation of current and future laws.
- Provide information and share expertise about disability and the law to people with disabilities, the disability community, service providers and the legal profession.
- Develop and expand ARCH's Resource Centre.
Organizational goals:
- Develop and implement an ongoing internal planning and evaluation process to better use our resources.
- Enhance and strengthen clinic administration.
- Clearly communicate ARCH's role and function to people with disabilities, disability rights advocates, the legal community and governments.
- Maintain and strengthen external relationships
In the Winter of 2007, the Board of Directors of ARCH Disability Law Centre initiated a renewed strategic planning process to assess our progress to date – and, as we move forward over the next three years, to decide upon a course of action and a mix of activity that is most useful for the community and that is within our mandate as a specialty community legal clinic funded by Legal Aid Ontario.
Similar to the 2001 strategic planning process, this year we also determined that a community consultation was necessary. We sought the views of our member organizations, as well as the public through a questionnaire (available on ARCH's website at www.archdisabilitylaw.ca and by mail, fax and email). In total, we received 25 detailed responses (including interviews) from community members (including member organizations), as well as detailed responses from many Board and staff members.
After receiving and analyzing the community questionnaires, a strategic planning meeting involving ARCH Board and staff members was held in March 2007. The purpose of the meeting was to contribute to the development of strategic directions that will guide ARCH over the next three years. The Strategic Planning Committee considered insights from this meeting in the preparation of this Strategic Plan. In addition, the themes identified by Deborah Leach and Associates, consultants retained to assist with the meeting process, were considered. Once approved by the Board, the Strategic Plan was ready for presentation to the general membership at the 2007 Annual General Meeting and posted on ARCH's website.
The members of the Strategic Planning Committee were three Board members including: Fraser Valentine (chair), Lana Frado and Gary Malkowski; and two staff members: Phyllis Gordon (executive director) and Robert Lattanzio (staff lawyer).
1. Situational Analysis
Current Organizational Structure
As a community legal clinic, ARCH conducts its activities within the scope of the Legal Aid Services Act, 1998. There is a network of 62 legal clinics providing general poverty law services across the Province of Ontario and another 17 specialty clinics that service to particular communities. ARCH is a specialty clinic. Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) is ARCH’s primary funder and sets reporting obligations for all legal clinics.
At the same time, ARCH is a consumer-directed not-for-profit corporation with an organizational membership structure. Over 60 disability consumer/survivor and service delivery groups currently form our membership. ARCH’s bylaw provides that a majority of people on its Board of Directors must be people with disabilities and another majority must be from our membership. In addition to LAO, ARCH also receives financial support from individual donors and other sources, including the City of Toronto and project grants from government and foundations.
The number of staff has varied over the years. In 2007, our permanent staff includes five lawyers, an office manager, three support staff, an information and referral worker, and an executive director (who is also a lawyer). Our program activities are law reform, test case litigation, summary advice and referral (SAR), public legal education (PLE), continuing legal education (CLE) and community development. ARCH maintains a website and a newsletter. We participate on several on-going and ad hoc committees through the legal clinics and the disability community.
Summary of the Community Consultation 2007
In general, participants of the survey viewed ARCH as a robust organization with both provincial and national significance. All of ARCH’s services were considered important even though SAR and test case litigation were ranked first. ARCH’s newsletter, ARCH Alert is also viewed as very important to the community.
The dominant message from the consultation process and the board/staff meeting is that ARCH should be more strategic and proactive in its planning of future work commitments and its overall legal strategies in order to more effectively address the needs of people with disabilities. This includes enhancing current partnerships and collaborating with new partners. ARCH’s internal processes should be more integrated and cohesive, bridging gaps between its service areas. Also, priority must be given to continue a high standard of quality for all service areas. Lastly, ARCH should strive to increase funding and diversify its funding sources. The summary of the consultation and the Report from the board/staff meeting is available on ARCH’s website at www.archdisabilitylaw.ca.
2. Overall Goals for 2007-2011
During the next three years, ARCH will work towards achieving the following two broad goals:
- To increase access to justice for people with disabilities in Ontario through our summary advice and referral, law reform, test case litigation, public legal education, continuing legal education and community development activities.
- To achieve substantive and positive change for people with disabilities by further focusing and integrating all our program areas and resources.
Goal 1: To increase access to justice for people with disabilities in Ontario
Objective 1:
There will be an increase in the number of lawyers and advocates in Ontario able and willing to provide general and specific legal services for people with disabilities.
Year 1 September 2007 - August 2008:
- Work with Legal Aid Ontario and the Law Society of Upper Canada and other professional organizations to ascertain the availability of legal services throughout the province.
- Begin to develop strategically selected legal partnerships and continuing education programs.
- Work collaboratively to increase the scope of legal aid certificates available to lawyers who represent people with disabilities and with respect to certain specific areas of the law.
- Consider various strategies to increase the number of lawyers on ARCH’s private bar referral list and begin implementing those strategies by Year Two.
Year 2 September 2008 - August 2009:
- Consider strategies and build relationships with private bar lawyers, law firms, municipal bar associations, and organizations such as the Advocate’s Society, Ontario Bar Association, and Pro Bono Law Ontario to improve access to justice in various areas of law for people with disabilities.
- Develop a SAR policy on the delivery of Brief Services through SAR. Assess SAR capabilities and available resources and identify continued and demonstrated need of brief services in two or three areas of substantive law.
Year 3 September 2009 - August 2010:
- Implement SAR Policy on the provision of Brief Services.
Objective 2:
ARCH’s public legal education effectiveness will be increased.
Year 1:
- Keep the website current, relevant and continually monitor and evaluate its use.
- Develop a framework for the delivery of oral and written public legal education throughout the province, working with appropriate partners.
Year 2:
- Monitor website and other PLE services for effectiveness.
- Identify areas of law that are being under-serviced by the legal community and develop CLE initiatives/activities to focus on remedying the identified need.
Year 3:
- Continue implementation of the activities, plans and frameworks developed in Years One and Two.
Objective 3:
People with disabilities and their community advocates all have greater capacity to advance their legal rights.
Year 1:
- Participate on committees of advocates, community legal clinics and people with disabilities where doing so will enhance capacity and access to justice.
Year 2:
- Work with community groups to enhance available information, advocacy services, and referral services on access to justice issues.
- Monitor and review staff activity in the community and participation on external committees for effectiveness.
Year 3:
- Examine efforts of the previous two years and re-evaluate the corresponding strategies and modify activities through planning and resource allocation.
Objective 4:
To reach people with disabilities in Ontario who do not currently know about their rights to live free of discrimination and without barriers.
Year 1:
- Develop and implement a plan to identify the most marginalized people with disabilities in Ontario and those connected with these communities.
Year 2:
- Develop and implement a plan of outreach to marginalized people with disabilities in order to identify their most important issues with regards to legal information, rights information, and issues that may become substantive priorities for ARCH.
Year 3:
- Work in collaboration with others to enhance community capacity where there are identified gaps.
Goal 2: Refocus and Integrate resources and activities to achieve substantive and positive change for people with disabilities in Ontario.
Objective:
- ARCH works more strategically and uses a proactive approach in various program areas.
- Staff resources are flexible and responsive to the most effective strategies identified to advance the substantive priorities.
Year 1:
- Work towards ensuring that program activities (including law reform, test case litigation, SAR, PLE, CLE and community development) undertaken flow from the priorities and strategies identified, and that resources are allocated appropriately.
- Finalize law reform selection criteria which will guide ARCH’s undertaking of law reform activities when issues emerge between planning days.
- Review SAR Protocol with regards to the development of a flexible and integrated resource allocation approach.
- Ascertain how to work effectively with the new structure at LAO developed in June 2007 to most effectively advance ARCH’s priorities.
- During the process of refocusing and integrating, ARCH will continue to provide its services as done in the past, subject to
Year 2:
- Monitor if the flexible resource allocation approach is being developed successfully.
- Review the test case selection criteria which will guide ARCH’s undertaking of test case litigation activities when issues emerge between planning days.
- Continue to work with funders and others to achieve these objectives.
- During the process of refocusing and integrating, ARCH will continue to provide its services as done in the past, subject to modifications as they may develop.
Year 3:
- To determine if the Objectives set out with respect to this Goal are being achieved and whether modifications are required.
Goal 3: Positive change for people with disabilities occurs in strategically selected areas.
Objective:
The disability community and ARCH Board and staff participate in priority setting.
Year 1:
- Monitor developments in all program activities including law reform, test case litigation, SAR, PLE, CLE and community development, in order to inform the board-staff planning day and community consultations that will lead to the identification of strategic priorities and the work of the next three years.
- Develop better mechanisms to track issues raised in all program areas to report these to staff, board and community in order to assist with priorities identification.
- Hold annual staff-board planning day. Limit the number of areas for staff focus to a realistic and limited number.
- In carrying out these priorities, staff integrate program activities where advisable. The selection of strategies is a staff function.
- Set realistic goals and evaluation mechanisms at the
- Develop a community consultation process for use in Year Two for community input regarding the identification of specific priorities for ARCH resources for the next two years.
Year 2:
- Implement the community consultation process to identify priorities for use of ARCH resources over the next two years. Evaluate the consultation process and develop modifications.
- Continue to improve mechanisms to track issues.
- In carrying out these priorities, staff integrate program activities where advisable. The selection of strategies is a staff function.
- Set realistic goals and evaluation mechanisms at the start of implementation with
Year 3:
- Hold a staff-board planning day to identify new priorities or re-focus current priorities midway in the two year cycle.
- Plan the next two-year consultation process.
