Legal Education for Young People

Legal Education for Young People

Many young people face distinct challenges and experience considerable barriers when it comes to obtaining legal information and assistance.

With a vision of increasing access to justice for young people, we offer free legal education sessions for schools, youth services and community organisations.

These sessions can be individually catered to meet the needs of your school or organisation.

Topics may include:

     - sexual assault laws
     - cyber bullying
     - mobile phones, social media and legal risks
     - interactions with police, arrest and custody
     - the youth justice system
     - legal services to the community
     - consumer issues

The Legal Services Commission has recently launched Trusted Moments, a short film developed as an early intervention strategy for the prevention of sexual assault.

Trusted Moments is designed to be used within schools, youth services, and FLO programs as a tool for facilitating discussion and learning about the law of consent and the importance of respectful relationships.

Set at a 17^th birthday party, the film draws attention to types of attitudes and behaviours that can lead to sexual assault and the potential impact of these behaviours on personal relationships and communities. It also highlights the inherent legal risks associated with using mobile phones for producing and sharing sexually explicit images of young people.

The film is supported by the Trusted Moments Study Guide. The Study Guide contains a number of resources including fact sheets that introduce young people to basic legal concepts to facilitate their participation in the learning activities suggested in the Study Guide.

To download the film's resources please visitwww.trustedmoments.com.au

As part of the Trusted Moments early intervention program, organisations using the resource are able to book legal education workshops for 2013 that explore in more detail the legal issues raised by the film. The workshops provide a unique opportunity for schools, youth services and community organisations to engage young people and staff in early intervention education about laws dealing with sexual assault and other criminal offences.

To view Trusted Moments or to discuss how your school or organisation may use this resource please contact Ella Pak Poy, Legal Education Officer, on the details above.

What does the community want us to do about SEXTING?

Recently the University of Michigan childrens hospital ran a poll asking adults about their views regarding youth sexting and the punishments/legislation around that. The poll found that the vast majority, 81 percent, of adults think an educational program or counseling is an appropriate consequence for teens who sext. Most adults also favor similar non-criminal programs: 76 percent of adults think schools should give all students and parents information on sexting, and 75 percent of adults support requiring community service for sexting teens.

I know that in each of the FRESH Youth focus courses the discussion turns to sexting and what we should do about it. As the law currently stands in South Australia
Sending suggestive or sexual images that can then be posted on the net or texted to other people is Illegal... if it involves the production or dissemination of child pornography or indecent material.

If you want to read more on the article go here. If you want to know more about sexting and the law in South Australia contact
Legal Services Commission82-98 Wakefield Street, Adelaide, or go here to have a look at what LAWSTUFF has to say.

legal aspects, relationships,law

I recently heard Christian Cifuentes from The Legal Services Commission of Adelaide. This guy is great and runs a range of programs that can help young people get their head around relationship law etc etc. You can go to their website to view the types of innovative programs that they run. Go here to have a look.

The talk that I attended was full of facts such as:

Under the new law it explicitly says that sexual activity is not consensual if:---
obtained by force or threats;
the victim is asleep or unconscious;
the victim is too intoxicated to agree;
the victim was unable to understand the nature of sexual activity;
the victim was mistaken about the identity of the person they were having sex with; or
the victim was being unlawfully detained.

Christian's talk was full of the legalese necessary to identify exactly what is going on , BUT.... It was also full of scenarios to help us nmake sense of the legalese.

The important things covered in the talk were:

the Criminal Law Consolidation Act

Summary Offenses aCT

Criminal Code Act

Consent to Sexual Activity

Sexual Assault

Unlawful Sexual Intercourse

Indecent Assault

Rape

Online Grooming

Compelled Sexual Manipulation

Sexting

Recieving pornography via mobile devices etc

This information was easy to understand and gave me a greater insight in how to deal with all of the weird and varied scenarios that many of us face in our day to day work