Lacking Insight - Community Law

Lacking InsightI think the role of the community member remainsproblematic. There are a number of communitymembers who don’t have a clear perception oftheir role and don’t seem to be as involved as thelawyer and the medical member and that raises areal issue as to what role they do play and whatcontribution they can actually make. I’m not surethat’s being resolved as well as it should be. Ithink there’s a feeling on the part of a number ofcommunity members that they are second classparticipants in the exercise.Too much of the time the community member justsits on the right hand side of the Chair and onlyasks the person whether they’ve got any familymembers and what they do during the day, it’snot a substantive contribution.Board Member (Legal)In response to this perceived lack of direction on thepart of community members, stakeholders suggest anumber of alternative approaches that can be takento the role. A focus on rights issues is often central tothis new approach.To be honest, I don’t see the communitymembers are particularly involved in hearings.They seem to sort of sit on the periphery a bit.And if they’re a key decision maker I think theyneed to be more involved. So I think in terms ofwhat sort of questions they do ask, I guess theydo ask questions about “Where are you living?” or– I think it’s more kind of welfare based more thananything else. To be honest, I don’t know. I don’tknow how much relevance they are to a hearing[as things presently stand].I think it would be nice for there to be a morerights based approach and perhaps thecommunity member could be the one to takemore of that sort of approach. I mean, you’ve gota legal member taking a very legalistic approach,or a psychiatrist member taking a medicalapproach, but it would be nice for a communitymember to actually take a more rights basedapproach and be able to actually ask questions ofthe client that are of relevance to the client.Legal RepresentativeTraining and review ofBoard membersWhen it comes to the matter of what trainingBoard members require, stakeholders are aware ofthe fact that practical measures can be taken byBoard members to make the review experience abetter one for consumers. Stakeholders recommenda number of improvements to the way the reviewprocess is conducted and to how Board membersconduct themselves.Peer reviewA number of stakeholders emphasise the importanceof peer review and ongoing training for membersto ensure that they receive feedback on theirperformance and to assist in the dissemination ofeffective approaches to particular situations.I gather you don’t sort of do peer reviews orsitting up the back and watching each other?No. Well it’s one of the weird things about sittingon a Tribunal. You get no feedback. Of all theones I’ve sat on I’ve had one session with oneChairperson of the Tribunal which I was reallypleased to have . . . and the person was a personI particularly respect and she had the idea thatshe should speak to each of the Board membersand give them some feedback about how theywere going and it was really welcomed from mypoint of view. I was really pleased to be able to80