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234. Advocacy I4.1. Mental Health Law, Information and Advocacy Services in Northern IrelandJim Campbell, Queens University at Belfast (Jim.campbell@qub.ac.uk)This paper describes a triangulated study into legal and information services for people with mental healthproblems in Northern Ireland. It explores both advice and information services for people living in thecommunity as well as legal and other forms of advocacy for individuals detained against their wishes inhospital, and appearing before mental review tribunals. The views of three constituents were sought using avariety of approaches - five focus groups with service users and carers (n=43), interviews with keyinformants who were experts in the field of legal and advocacy services (n=8) and a questionnaire survey of300 solicitors who claimed to be providing advocacy for clients who attended mental health reviewtribunals.The study revealed a growth in legal and information services available to people with mental healthproblems living in the community, but that this tended to be piecemeal and unstructured. Views on theoperation of the mental health review tribunal tended to be mixed, ranging from an appreciation of thesensitive and principled management of the legal process to criticisms about advocates being underresourced and lacking in key knowledge and skills. The paper concludes by arguing for a more robustsystem of information and advocacy in such a key area of human rights and at a time when the currentmental health law is being reviewed.4.2. Lessons Learned: The First Year of Mental Health Services in a StudentCommunity Legal ClinicLora M. Patton, York University (lpatton@osgoode.yorku.ca)As Ontario’s mental health system transitions from a centralized, institutional-based structure to one morefocused on increasing independence and home-care, persons defined as being seriously mentally ill arebeing treated more often within their own communities. With the change, persons previously living inhospital gain new independence but also must deal with new realities, often without the promisedcommunity support: a lack of safe and affordable housing, significant deficiencies in the social assistanceprograms, criminalization of behaviours related to their illnesses and discrimination in every form. Assuch, they are interacting with the law in an entirely new way, an interaction in which lawyers dealing withcommittal, capacity and treatment are unprepared to manage.Community lawyers could hold the key to redressing some of the inequities facing this client group but as aprofession, we remain largely unprepared to meet this challenge. Typical legal training, clinical training inparticular, does not provide the knowledge of mental health systems nor the skills necessary to work withclients with mental health needs. In order for the profession to respond effectively, legal education, bothformal and clinical must adapt.