Appendix B: Case study summaries

Case Study: Public Legal Education Association of Canada

The Public Legal Education Association of Canada (PLEAC) is a national non-profit organization that serves as an umbrella organization for groups working in the field of public legal education and information (PLEI) across Canada. PLEAC connects their members to one another, governments, the legal community, and others interested in the delivery of law information as a vital part of access to the justice system. PLEAC also promotes professional development opportunities and organizes conferences to share best practices, learn new approaches, and identify opportunities for research and evaluation. Over its history, PLEAC has helped develop a body of expertise, and research and practice models for PLEI.

Of the projects funded by the Legal Support and Awareness to Address Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Initiative, PLEAC’s project is unique in that PLEAC was not funded to provide PLEI or legal advice services to the public. Instead, PLEAC received funding to help foster and support knowledge-sharing and collaboration among Initiative-funded project grantees and organizations. The project focused on enabling opportunities for knowledge collaboration/knowledge transfer and partnerships among members of different funded projects, provided free professional development opportunities related to PLEI and supporting survivors of sexual harassment open to all Initiative grantees, and hosted an in-person conference. Additional knowledge dissemination activities included the development of an internal online portal through which members working on funded projects could learn about other funded projects across Canada and share resources related to workplace sexual harassment.

Key Observations

At the core of PLEAC’s project is knowledge-sharing and promotion of best practices in the delivery of PLEI, particularly around sexual harassment in the workplace (SHW). During the project’s first year, PLEAC reached out to all key contacts of Initiative-funded projects to determine professional development interests and possible group meeting options. They then held their first full-cohort online meeting in May 2020 which was attended by 55 individuals. Since, PLEAC’s project has helped facilitate several ongoing small working groups among members of Initiative-funded projects, including working groups that are geographic-focused, specific community or population-focused, and specific sector/industry‐focused. In addition, 12 webinars on a wide array of subjects were delivered between April 2020 and January 2022, some with over 100 participants. PLEAC also developed an online sharing space and held a conference in October 2022 with over 100 in-person attendees and 50 online attendees.

This project has regularly brought together practitioners and stakeholders engaged in PLEI work (both generally, and specifically on the issue of workplace sexual harassment) to share ideas and best practices, to discuss evaluation and measurement of key metrics, and to plan the future sustainability of PLEI work in this field. The knowledge-sharing activities and opportunities have generally been very well received and have also been of interest to a majority of SHW-funded organizations. About 85% of SHW funded organizations have regularly participated in activities. The various activities carried out through the projects have resulted in greater collaborations and partnerships among Initiative-funded projects. The project has also resulted in knowledge-sharing and resource-sharing as the vast majority of Initiative‐funded groups have been willing and eager to share knowledge, best practices and resources with each other. In interviews, many representatives of funded projects reported collaborating with other funded organizations to better serve the needs of their clients, for example, through referrals or access to shared tools. Several organizations used the small working group formats to share information or even partner with one another to avoid duplication and make the best use of limited resources.

Challenges and Success Factors

One of the main challenges for PLEAC’s project has been struggling to schedule group meetings in a manner to accommodate most participants when funding recipients are located across the country. Another challenge relates to uncertainties associated with organizing an in-person conference during the pandemic, with constantly changing public health measures and various comfort levels with in-person meetings and travel.

Surprisingly, the pandemic environment in 2020 was identified as having been an enabling factor to project success. Specifically, the fact that all projects were faced with having to redesign their original project plan to suit virtual delivery meant that all groups were facing a common difficult challenge together at the same time, and within a highly uncertain environment. These conditions helped motivate more participants than perhaps may have otherwise, to attend PLEAC’s first and other early scheduled online gatherings. This is because participants were interested in discovering and learning from what other projects were doing given pandemic restrictions.

Case Study: Public Legal Education and Information Service of New Brunswick

Public Legal Education and Information Service (PLEIS) is a non-profit organization and a registered charity. Its mandate is to develop bilingual educational products and services about the law for the general public to promote access to the legal system. Its goal is to assist the public in identifying and understanding their legal rights and responsibilities and attaining self-help skills where appropriate to improve their ability to deal with legal issues. The intended audience of PLEIS’ project is the general public as well as vulnerable and marginalized groups in the population. To overcome the unique barriers and challenges vulnerable groups face in accessing legal services, PLEIS works with or provides training to trusted intermediaries. The PLEIS publication program is the backbone of its service.

This project aimed to create education and training resources that explain the law, policies, practices, and procedures for dealing with SHW both from an employment law and a human rights perspective. The first two years of the project included two important components, a consultation phase from October 2019 to February 2020 and a pilot testing phase from December 2020 to June 2021. Through consultations with many stakeholders including subject matter experts, PLEIS identified a need related to legal representation for those who have experienced SHW. An amendment was obtained in 2021-2022 to support the development of a Lawyer Referral Service until 2023-2024.

Key Observations

PLEIS’ project involved a partnership with the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission (NBHRC). NBHRC’s key role in the project was to educate employers on how to use GBA Plus and trauma-informed approaches to support vulnerable workers.

The ability of PLEIS and NBHRC to work closely and collaborate from the beginning of the project helped create a more integrated project rather than a project with two different streams of intervention.

PLEIS’ project also included collaborations with the Fredericton Sexual Assault Center, the Department of Law/University of New Brunswick, and the Department of Law/Université de Moncton. These collaborations contributed to facilitating the identification of needs, gaps, and challenges for target populations and supported the development of high quality SHW-related resources.

As several lessons and best practices were identified in the project’s consultation phase, PLEIS was able to apply lessons learned to subsequent phases. PLEIS was able to secure a high number of registrations in the project’s pilot sessions (64 people). Further, participants represented a wide variety of workplaces, business sectors, regions of the province, and speakers of both official languages.

The website developer PLEIS hired to develop the Safer Places NB website developed through this project was a SHW subject-matter expert. The creation of this portal/website bringing together data, documents, information on services, etc. to a common space where all stakeholders can access this information through an intuitive tool has been an important enabler for addressing the sexual harassment.

Representatives from PLEIS shared that if they could go back and relaunch their project again, they would put more focus on newcomers and persons with disabilities, as there is an increasing number of newcomers arriving in New Brunswick and persons with disabilities are vulnerable to being the target of SHW.

Challenges and Success Factors

Challenges encountered by the project to date include:

Success factors for the project included:

Case Study: White Ribbon

White Ribbon is a Canadian registered charitable organization dedicated to engaging men and boys in ending violence against women and girls, and promoting gender equity, healthy relationships and a new vision of masculinity. Since its inception in Toronto in 1991, White Ribbon Campaign initiatives have been organized in over 60 countries around the world. Among their many calls to action, White Ribbon asks men to pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls. The organization looks to engage men and boys in the prevention of gender-based violence (GBV) through promoting equity and transforming social norms. They accomplish this by challenging and supporting men and boys to realize their potential to be part of the solution in ending all forms of GBV.

For their Initiative-funded project, White Ribbon developed and led two-targeted sexual harassment response and prevention projects for two private sector groups: the Sunwing Travel Group (STG) and the Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) Group. STG is in the hospitality/tourism sector, with an employee sub-group (airline) that is male dominated, while CSL (shipping) is fully male dominated. Both groups had brief previous experience working with White Ribbon and had expressed interest in placing a more concentrated focus on responding to and preventing sexual harassment in their workplaces.

White Ribbon’s project involved the development of industry targeted PLEI resources, a train-the-trainer program, support for senior managers of STG and CSL, and a social media campaign. The aim of the train-the-trainer component was to help enhance accountability and ownership of the issue within the workplace, as well as build the capacity of the trainers (managers) to foster psychologically safe spaces to help ensure staff could approach learning about SHW in a constructive and open way. Industry focused resources developed through this project were not only made available to STG and CSL but distributed to others in the industries. Other organizations enlisted to help disseminate the resources developed included the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, Tourism HR Canada, Canadian Union of Public Employees (airline division), and the Shipping Federation of Canada, among others.

Key Observations

While White Ribbon’s funded project focused on two clients in the tourism and shipping industry, representatives stressed that there is a strong need for SHW attention in male-dominated sectors in general. Representatives also stressed that to have an impact, it is important to take a primary prevention approach – getting at the root causes, not just treating the symptoms – as well as to recognize that culture change takes time.

An unintended impact of the project is that the CSL Group and the STG have engaged in conversations with some of their other partners, regarding their experience of obtaining support with SHW. Some of these partners have expressed their own interest in taking steps to address SHW within their workplaces.

A key lesson coming out of the project is the recognition that there are many sectors that would benefit from this kind of intervention (i.e., targeted support, train the trainer programs, allyship training). The work could also be further expanded given new technological advances since the launch of the project.

Challenges and Success Factors

The COVID-19 pandemic had several impacts on the project’s success. This included: the sectors of focus for the project having been heavily impacted by the pandemic (e.g., layoffs, reductions in operation); GBV having increased during the pandemic; and the overall uncertainty associated with the pandemic having created challenges for project implementation.

A few success factors were identified, including:

Case Study: Atlantic Region Network

This case study was undertaken to determine the nature of the impact of the density of funded projects. Five projects from the four Atlantic provinces formed a network with the intention of sharing information and collaborating. The following three projects participated in this case study18,19:

The Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia (LISNS) is a charitable organization providing Nova Scotians with information and resources about the law since 1982. LISNS provides legal information, resources and referral options in traditional and innovative ways to enable Nova Scotians to understand their legal rights and responsibilities. Services include responding to legal questions, providing lawyer referrals and a list of volunteer speakers among others.

The agreement with LISNS is for a project entitled Sexual Harassment Prevention through Legal Advice, Legal Information and Training for Employees in the Workplace for the period from July 2019 to March 2024. The agreement specifies that LISNS is responsible to deliver public legal education and information and establish a lawyer referral program to provide independent free legal advice to people who have been sexually harassed in the workplace in the province of Nova Scotia. The documents also states that LISN will develop a national template of best practices to share with PLEI organizations.

The Community Legal Information of PEI (CLI) is a registered charity that helps residents of the province understand the law and navigate the justice system in the province. The agreement with CLI is for a project entitled Addressing Workplace Sexual Harassment (also known as RISE). The RISE website explains that through this program, CLI provides free legal resources and support to people who have experienced sexual violence, workplace sexual harassment, or intimate partner violence.20 These services include four hours of free legal advice from a lawyer, plain language legal information, support to navigate the justice system, and referrals to other community services.

The Public Legal Information Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (PLIAN) is an independent non-profit organization that provides general information and education about the law to all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, with the intent of increasing access to justice. The mandate of PLIAN is to increase and improve access to justice in Newfoundland and Labrador. This is accomplished in several ways, including by the operation of a general legal information phone line and Lawyer Referral Service, through the development and distribution of publications intended to explain various aspects of the law, and by the delivery of presentations on a range of legal topics and issues to schools, organizations, and other groups throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.

PLIAN’s project provides legal navigation, support and advice to employees in Newfoundland and Labrador who have experienced SHW21. Employees are provided with consultation and support as required, including referrals to community supports and free legal advice from a lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment. The project also includes a public legal education and information campaign and presentations with employers and employees throughout the province.

Key Observations

Both CLI and PLIAN interviewees discussed how their organizations appreciated the opportunity to meet with other Atlantic Region Network members every 4-6 weeks. At these regular meetings, different projects shared their successes and challenges and discussed what they were seeing and experiencing regionally. A key benefit of the Atlantic Region Network was that it allowed the projects in the network to share resources and in so doing, reduced duplication of effort. For example, PLIAN shared that they benefitted from using CLI’s very detailed Survivor Handbook as a guide to create their own handbook for Newfoundland and Labrador. Not all funded recipient interviewees noted participating in these regular touch-base calls.

Both CLI and PLIAN identified that they found it helpful to build relationships with other projects and believed that these relationships would continue beyond the duration of the project. The usefulness of these relationships lay not only in their avoidance of duplication, but in sharing best practices and learning from each other.

Challenges and Success Factors

The majority of organizations identified that they had formed critical collaborations with organizations that were close to or invested in the interests of targeted communities. Across the three projects this included collaborations with organizations serving Black women, Indigenous people, 2SLGBTQI+ people, and newcomers to Canada respectively. One of the funded projects’ interviewees noted that they had learned of this collaboration strategy from another SHW Initiative funded organization within the Atlantic Region Network. Another commonality identified as a best practice, although not attributed to the Atlantic Region Network, was having information available in multiple languages to remove barriers to access for target populations. These resources included websites, dubbed videos, bilingual project personnel, access to bilingual lawyers, lawyers with immigration experience, and pamphlets.

Recognizing the time required to build relationships with collaborators was identified as both a success and a challenge. It was noted that it takes a lot of time and resources to collaborate, that supports are required and work plans should be established accordingly. At the base of collaboration is trust-building, which is generally achieved over a period of time. 

There are challenges that funded organizations experienced. The most notable of these challenges included the Covid-19 pandemic and the interruption of daily operations. Funding recipients were able to identify that online access during the pandemic was at times problematic, particularly for individuals experiencing SHW from rural and remote communities.

Case Study: Northumberland Community Legal Centre

The Help and Legal Centre of Northumberland operates officially under the name of Northumberland Community Legal Centre (NCLC), which will be the name used in this case study. NCLC is a community legal clinic providing legal services to low-income residents in Northumberland County, Ontario. Services range from advice, representation, public legal education, community development, law reform and referrals. 

The objective of the project was to support legal clinics in Ontario to increase public awareness and knowledge of SHW and to provide access to legal information and advice for persons who have experienced SHW. Proposed projects involved:

A total of 20 legal clinics from across the province of Ontario participated in this project, including eight from the South-West Ontario, eight from Eastern-Central Ontario, and four from Northern Ontario.  These legal clinics collaborated and took on a coordinated approach to produce legal education materials and to hire staff to provide legal advice, deliver services to clients and present at various educational sessions. Four communities worked together to create a multi-sectorial and collaborative public education information awareness and empowerment campaign targeting at male-dominated industries (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in Ontario.

Key Observations

The 20 community legal clinic delivery partners serve diverse communities across the province. Each legal clinic is uniquely situated to address the needs of the diverse groups within their communities by tailoring the PLEI and legal advice to their local circumstances and the issues their clients face. The legal clinics are also working together to share best practices and lessons with each other to apply to specific populations and demographics.

A community legal clinic model that provides services under a legal education stream and a legal advice stream is seen as a best practice. Moreover, having the ability to provide both PLEI and legal advice with different staff who are interconnected in their communities brings a lot of value. Clinics have many community legal workers doing outreach every day with the communities.

Each legal clinic in the project developed a range of partnerships. These varied by communities served and the available of community resources. An important reason for creating more partnerships is to foster connections between local community legal clinics and local agencies and organizations that may already be serving those who have experienced SHW (for example, doctors). Given the lack of resources in rural areas, and organizations with which to partner, legal clinics have been creative in identifying different locations to connect people who may have experienced SHW with information on SHW and how to get help. They have also been using ads in major newspaper chains, social media posts, and other ad campaigns as ongoing means to raise awareness.

Challenges and Success Factors

The project has faced a few challenges. Notable challenges include:

Success factors that have supported the activities and outcomes of the project include: