About us

Overview

Funded through the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Program, the project works directly with legal aid commissions in multiple jurisdictions to assess whether a structured, evidence-based model can translate trauma-informed principles into practical, measurable change. The research will examine staff experiences, client outcomes, client feedback and organisational practices before and after the adoption of trauma-informed approaches.

Background

Many people accessing free legal assistance present with overlapping social, economic and personal challenges, including experiences of trauma that can limit their ability to engage effectively in legal processes. While trauma-informed practice has gained acceptance in clinical and community settings, its explicit application within legal services remains limited.

This project aims to address that gap by integrating and evaluating trauma-informed approaches within diverse legal aid contexts, with a view to improving client experience, client outcomes and workforce sustainability. The project’s overarching goal is to create and disseminate evidence-based findings that inform better policies, elevate service quality and reduce the risk of re-traumatisation for clients.

Our aim

The STILS project has two primary aims:

1. To assess the effectiveness of the integration of trauma-informed approaches to legal aid service delivery in six teams across Victoria, New South Wales and the Northern Territory.
2. To create and disseminate evidence-based findings that inform better policies, elevate service quality and reduce the risk of re-traumatisation for clients.

Our approach

The project method of a stepped-wedge, multi-site research design evaluates the effectiveness of trauma-informed practices across different legal settings. This approach involves sequentially rolling out interventions across multiple locations at different times, allowing each site to act as its own control before receiving the intervention. It is well-suited to real-world service delivery contexts, where randomisation is often impractical or impossible, and effectively manages potential confounding factors. (¹)

The project will explore three key areas of potential change:

1. Qualitative improvements in the client experience
2. Quantitative improvements in client outcomes
3. Improvements in professional’s wellbeing and relationship to work.

The intervention will be rolled out across six teams from three Legal Aid commissions in the Northern Territory, New South Wales, and Victoria. In each jurisdiction, teams have been paired as closely as possible based on comparable size, service scope, client community and geographic characteristics. In the Northern Territory, criminal law teams from Darwin and Alice Springs will participate. New South Wales will involve family law teams from Wollongong and Gosford, while Victoria’s participation includes two civil law teams based in Melbourne.

Baseline data collection will occur simultaneously across all sites prior to intervention implementation, capturing staff wellbeing, client experiences, organisational readiness, and relevant outcome metrics. Following baseline collection, intervention roll-out will occur sequentially—first implemented with Phase A in each jurisdiction, followed by Phase B. Data collection will occur immediately after each training session, with further follow-up data gathered at approximately 3 and 6-months post-training to assess learning retention, behavioural shifts, and preliminary impacts on client and organisational outcomes.

This staged implementation not only facilitates detailed analysis of changes attributable to trauma-informed training but also provides opportunities for ongoing refinement of the program elements, based on real-time feedback and site-specific learnings. Evaluation methods combine both qualitative and quantitative approaches, structured according to the Kirkpatrick model of training evaluation, assessing learning, behavioural changes, and results. (²)

Our team

STILS Research Team

• Professor Chris Maylea | Chief Investigator (Lead), La Trobe University
• A/Professor Piers Gooding | Chief Investigator, La Trobe University
• Professor Lisa Brophy | Chief Investigator, La Trobe University
• Professor Penelope Weller | Chief Investigator, RMIT University
• Professor Stuart Thomas | Chief Investigator, RMIT University
• Puneet Sansanwal | PhD Student – La Trobe University
• Joseph Cook | Project Coordinator – La Trobe University
• Bowzer Sharka | Lived Experience Lead – La Trobe University
• Morgan Gould | Cultural Consultant and Research Assistant – La Trobe University
• TJ Spencer | Research Assistant – La Trobe University
• Alice Fox | Research Assistant – La Trobe University
• Georgina David Hanna | Research Assistant – La Trobe University

(¹) K Hemming et al, ‘The Stepped Wedge Cluster Randomised Trial: Rationale, Design, Analysis, and Reporting’ (2015) 350 BMJ h391.

(²) James D Kirkpatrick and Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick, Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation (Association for Talent Development, 2023)