TOWER HAMLETS LAW CENTRE Annual Review 2007-2008

RECEPTION AND REFERRAL SERVICES
TopicofLaw
Education 47
Debt/MoneyAdvice 80
Housing 331
Immigration 418
Welfarebenefits 229
Employment 68
Family/Relationship Clockwise from top left:
144
Dermot Morrow (Supervisor),
Other 910
Thaslima Begum, Lilian Byrnes (Finance
Total 2227
& Monitoring Supervisor), Ugo Hayter,
Shahnaz Hussain
Education 100
e t oney v ce
16 Housing Annual Review 2007-2008 154
Immigration 724
The reception service is the first point of contact for the vast
majority of people that will become clients of the Law Centre
and for those that we signpost to other agencies where we
are unable to assist with a particular matter.
This year our reception team as part of the
Administrative group helped over 3,500 people at both
signposting and general help level. Our full-time
Receptionist Shahnaz Hussain returned from maternity
leave in September 2008. Her role had been ably covered
in the interim by Makmoda Khanom who we said goodbye
and thanks to.We wish her well.
We also welcomed Musthak Ahmed (previously a Legal
volunteer with the Immigration group) and Ugo Hayter. Both
were appointed as Casework Assistants, initially on a locum
basis, in order to discover the impact of additional support
to caseworkers in delivering their matter start targets in
each group.
This year we have delivered specialist casework advice
to over 1391 people in Housing, Education, Immigration and
Welfare Benefits. The charts below and opposite show
breakdowns of cases undertaken by subject area, age and
ethnicity.
4%
2%
4% 3%
28% 14%
Education
13%
32%
SIGNPOSTING AND GENERAL HELP
The centre launched its new website in the autumn of 2008
- and not before time! A visit to www.thlc.co.uk provides
potential clients, partners and funders alike information on
our services and areas of work.
The eventual aim will be to incorporate the website into
a much larger online referral system involving partner
agencies in Tower Hamlets and other east London
boroughs. The current proposal is for this web-based
system to enable all agencies involved to streamline
services for their clients, by booking appointments with
other agencies on their behalf, discovering other agencies’
capacity for new cases, anticipated waiting times etc.
This work is still at development stage and is being led
by Heather Johnson the THCAN Manager.
Debt/MoneyAdvice
Housing
Immigration
Welfarebenefits
Employment
Family/Relationship
Other
16%
13%
8%
2%
25%
36%
DELIVERY OF CASEWORK BY AGE OF CLIENT