Fostering stronger relationships with panel practitioners

L–R: Senior Practitioner Support Officer Floyd Taylor-Morrison, Practitioner Support Officer Lauren Kirshon, Practitioner Support Officer Suzanne Joyce, Practitioner Support Officer Bianca Cameron, Practitioner Support Officer Poppy Andrew.

We recently created a team to improve and foster relationships between private practitioners, our in-house lawyers and our Grants and Quality Assurance (GQA) team in Legal Practice.

The Practitioner Support Officer (PSO) team sits within the Panels and Practitioner Engagement team in GQA. The team currently comprises a senior practitioner support officer and 4 practitioner support officers.

Our PSO’s support practitioners in the delivery of legally aided services by providing ongoing training and support in grants of assistance and the VLA Handbook. There are dedicated PSO contacts for the north, south-east and south-west regions to assist with all region-specific GQA training needs.

The team currently offer training in the use of ATLAS, guidelines, and fees. Practitioners can attend scheduled training sessions, or the team can provide a specific training session tailored to individual practitioner needs, online or in person.

On top of the team’s regular training schedule, we encourage practitioners to send any queries about the application of our guidelines, our fees and the use of ATLAS to grantstraining@vla.vic.gov.au

For example, the PSO team can action requests to clarify which guideline a client’s matter falls under or which fee is payable for a particular appearance.

More information

To request training for private practitioners, information on regional PSO contacts and other resources available, please email grantstraining@vla.vic.gov.au(opens in a new window)

If you have any questions about the PSO team, contact Senior Practitioner Support Officer Floyd Taylor-Morrison at Floyd.TaylorMorrison@vla.vic.gov.au