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An effective
needs assessment provides critical input for legal aid programs,
informing a broad array of strategic decisions about program management
and resource deployment -- from the types of services that are provided,
to case acceptance priorities, to the development and implementation
of new projects and partnerships to meet changing needs in the client
population.
A
well-designed needs assessment will engage the full range of program
stakeholders, including the client community, partner organizations,
the private bar, the judiciary, government agencies, and the program's
own staff and board. By using a combination of focus groups, facilitated
work sessions and analysis of already-existing needs survey and
population data, The Resource makes comprehensive needs assessments
more affordable than ever before, bringing the insights, feedback,
and direction provided by this powerful tool within reach of programs
that had previously considered needs assessments to be a once-a-decade
process.
During 2001-2002,
three legal aid programs in Pennsylvania partnered to undertake
a comprehensive legal needs assessment covering their fourteen-county
service area (The three programs consisted of Neighborhood Legal
Services Association, Laurel Legal Services and Southwestern Pennsylvania
Legal Services, which collaborated in 1997 to form the Southwestern
Pennsylvania Legal Services Consortium, one of the six regional
entities emerging from the 1998 Pennsylvania statewide planning
process). They engaged The Resource for Great Programs
to:
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Design
a process to engage all major stakeholders in appraising the
legal needs of eligible low-income people in the service area;
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Assist the
programs in collecting and analyzing the results; and
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Facilitate
conversations among the leadership and stakeholder groups to
develop strategic initiatives, including a review of program
priorities, for addressing the high-priority needs that were
revealed.
The needs
assessment was comprehensive and comprised six elements:
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Preliminary
work session with stakeholders. To launch the process, The
Resource facilitated a work session of the Public Interest
Law Forum, a leadership group previously formed by the three
programs, to obtain perspectives from leaders of legal services
providers, law school representatives, and other members of
the legal community.
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An analysis
of service area demographic data. The Resource analyzed
1990 and 2000 Census data to produce a detailed picture of the
principal demographic characteristics of the eligible client
population. The"portrait" that emerged showed the
target population's geographic distribution and areas of concentration,
growth rate, proportions relative to the overall (non-poverty)
population by county, and the distribution of special populations
such as children, seniors, the disabled, and minority ethnic
groups.
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Analysis
of available survey data. To estimate the numbers and types
of legal problems experienced by the eligible population,
The Resource applied a statistical model based on available
legal needs survey data. This approach conserved resources by
avoiding the need for an expensive survey of the client population
(A face-to-face or telephone survey with a scientific sample
of at least 300 completed interviews would be required to produce
valid estimates of the incidence of legal problems in the region.
At $50-$100 per interview, this was deemed too expensive for
the purposes of this study. A less expensive alternative, a
mail survey, could be expected to provide a response rate of
only 10-25 percent, insufficient to provide statistically valid
results. Rather than spend the limited resources of the programs
on client surveys, The Resource applied a statistical model
based on prior needs study data to estimate the numbers and
types of legal problems experienced by the programs' eligible
population).
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Personal
interviews. Two types of interviews were done:
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Key
observer telephone interviews, facilitated by The
Resource, with all managing attorneys and all chairs
of the programs' substantive law groups; and
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Community
partner telephone interviews, done by program staff
as a follow-up to the focus group meetings (see below) with
leaders in the bench, bar, business community, helping agencies,
and community organizations.
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Focus
group sessions. Structured, face-to-face focus group sessions,
facilitated by managing attorneys trained by The Resource,
were held in the spring and summer of 2002 in each of the counties
served by the three programs. These meetings applied a standard
protocol and data collection format designed by The Resource
and engaged 115 community participants.
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Strategic
planning sessions. In August 2002, two planning meetings
were held to explore opportunities for developing collaborative
initiatives to address the priority areas of affordable housing
and "comprehensive intake." Participants included
the executive directors, resource development coordinators,
staff of a neighboring legal aid program, and three professional
consultants with expertise in legislative fundraising, government,
grant-funded project development, and strategic marketing. In
early 2003, a Board planning process was undertaken by one of
the three programs, with the important focus on moving forward
with resource development opportunities arising from the needs
assessment findings.
The needs
assessment produced five findings:
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The legal needs of the poor far exceed the resources available
to meet them. In 2002, the cases
handled by the programs' lawyers and paralegals addressed only
13 percent of the legal problems estimated to occur among the
more than 450,000 low-income residents of the service area.
The needs assessment affirmed the critical importance of both
priority-setting to ensure efficient utilization of scarce resources
and aggressive resource development to enroll new funders and
partners in a renewed effort to expand access to civil justice
for all persons.
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The
ongoing focus on six "emergency" legal problem areas
must be maintained. Addressing
the problems of domestic violence, unemployment, loss of housing,
denial of disability benefits, consumer exploitation, and denial
of welfare benefits had been previously identified as regional
priorities in 1997 as an outcome of a strategic planning process.
In the focus groups, the client community affirmed that these
six critical issues continue to have devastating consequences
for the families affected without immediate access to highly
effective legal assistance.
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The
client community supports full implementation of a Helpline.
Focus group participants were
aware of the Helpline, liked the idea, and were ready for expansion
of it. They provided valuable information about the needs to
be addressed through this channel and about high-priority concerns
they would like to see addressed in its design and operation.
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There
is a network of referral resources already in place upon which
the programs can build. The focus
group process produced a comprehensive data base of referral
resources that exist in each of the counties. Participants listed
the people and agencies their neighbors and colleagues currently
rely upon for help and identified what an ideal referral system
would look like in the future from the perspective of people
who would be expected to use it.
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A
process has been put in place for developing fundable, collaborative
projects that will address high-priority community needs having
a legal aid component. This process, which is in itself
a priority emerging from the needs assessment, was developed
and used as an integral part of the needs assessment to lay
out two initial collaborative projects: (1) an affordable housing
initiative, and (2) a "Comprehensive Intake" initiative.
For each, potential funding sources and collaborating partners
were identified. Using the needs assessment as an event for
starting new conversations around client needs, the programs
and their partners positioned themselves to seek funding and
launch the projects. They emerged with a replicable process
– a project-generating engine – they can use over
and over to launch new projects in the future.
The needs
assessment produced powerful tools and insights to position the
programs to respond to the most urgent needs of their community
and move toward Full Access to Justice. As a result of the needs
assessment, these programs now have an asset – their priority
statement – that promises to yield big dividends for their
clients, their partners, and the low-income community in 2004 and
beyond. These findings provide both the rationale and the direction
for a powerful strategic effort that will expand their capacity
to meet the legal needs of the target population.
Focus group
participants highlighted some of the critical gaps and potential
opportunities in the existing legal aid system in the region –
and also indicated that the low-income community is supportive of
legal aid as a resource where the low-income community can go to
get effective, caring help in a crisis. Above all, the community
is ready for efforts to narrow the gap between aspirations like
"Equal Access to the Law" and "Full Access to Justice"
and the reality they see on the ground in the low-income neighborhoods
of the region.
The needs assessment
revealed a critical need for more legal help over a wide spectrum
of legal problems: housing, child support, jobs and transportation,
health insurance, seniors problems, divorce and custody, special
education, guardianship, predatory lending and many others. These
needs cry out for more than simply expanding the traditional services
that legal aid programs have provided in the past. They call for
innovative, collaborative approaches that would expand both resources
and community impact by enrolling partners such as special programs,
members of the Public Interest Law Forum, local bar associations,
large law firms, banks and other members of the business community,
law schools, city and county governments, and foundations.
These needs
provide the driving force for a new priority: Developing and launching
collaborative projects based on "models that work" –
successful projects operated by other legal aid programs within
the region or elsewhere – and enrolling community partners
and funders who will help the programs to expand resources for providing
access to our justice system for all.
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