Access to legal services in women's shelters /

The researchers created a protocol that included questions intended to examine how staff perceive and address the legal needs and issues of clients, the utilization of community resources and the staff supports in place, such as training and legal education, reproduced as Appendix C. A total of 15 staff participated in the focus groups, including managers and front-line service workers. [...] The rural shelter was accessed the most times out of the three participating agencies (n=20), followed by one of the urban shelters (n=16); Figure 1. The higher number of visits to the rural shelter could be due to the lack of available resources and options in rural areas compared to urban areas (Macy et al., 2013; Sandberg, 2013). [...] Of the 32 respondents who had children with them, 40.6% were between the ages of 30 to 39, compared to 34.4% between the ages of 40 to 60 and 25% between the ages of 20 to 29. [...] The researchers prepared a semi-structured protocol that outlined the areas of focus and the questions that guided each focus group; the protocol is reproduced as Appendix C. The areas of focus were general thematic questions that were informed by recent literature on the complex needs of IPV clients. [...] The questions included the length of time staff had been working with clients affected by IPV, the issues commonly presented at intake, the service referrals that are given to clients and how clients follow up with those referrals, and staff perception of the efficiency of available legal services and supports.