Court hire fees for Bar Mock Trial – Derry heat

Grant: £2,360
November 23, 2017

This project involves the additional costs incurred for the hire of the Londonderry Courthouse for the purposes of running a Bar Mock Trial competition there.

Advancement of Public Legal Education (PLE) for young people in Wales

Grant: £60,000
June 21, 2017

This project aims to build on the Citizenship Foundation’s work over the past six months, to improve the legal capability of young people in Wales. It responds to needs identified in and out of schools, within the legal profession, by the Welsh Government and academic institutions.

It will,

• continue to work with secondary schools and colleges to better understand their PLE needs, and shape initiatives accordingly.
• continue to increase the diversity and number of schools participating in the Mock Trials competitions – encouraging new schools from less advantaged areas to take part in new and existing heats.
• make new bilingual Law in Wales resources available for free to all schools via Hwb (the Welsh Government’s schools digital platform) and through the SmartLaw website – and adapt existing resources in accordance with the Welsh Government’s devolved powers.
• continue to create flexible and affordable opportunities for legal and other professionals to further PLE in schools and colleges.

A feasibility study on delivering PLE to young people outside the formal education sector – including youth groups, roma people and pupil referral units will also be undertaken.

Aiming for 2020: Increasing PLE in Northern Ireland

Grant: £50,000
November 9, 2016

This project focuses on delivering the Lawyers in Schools and the Mock Trial Competitions, Smartlaw programme, together with the introduction of newly developed initiatives in Northern Ireland. All the SmartLaw initiatives are designed to increase young people’s legal capability by up-skilling non-specialist intermediaries – usually teachers and legal professionals.

Increasing the quantity of quality PLE resources

Grant: £21,150
June 22, 2016

The aim of the project is to affect a measurable improvement of young people in Northern Ireland’s understanding of the law and their capability to use it by:

• Increasing the number of young people from economically disadvantaged areas of Northern Ireland that take part in the Citizenship Foundation’s Bar Mock Trial
• Increasing the number of young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds in Northern Ireland that can take part in the Citizenship Foundation’s Lawyers in Schools programme.
• Increasing the number of young people at Integrated Colleges in Northern Ireland who take part in Bar Mock Trials and Lawyers in Schools.

The project will do this by,

• Establishing a second Bar Mock Trials heat in a Derry in 2016 to; make it more accessible to more schools and colleges, build on the experience of and learnings from the second Belfast heat 2015 of Bar Mock Trials and build a sustainable model for the future.
• Deliver 12 Lawyers in Schools sessions at a school or college in Northern Ireland that draws its students from both Catholic and Protestant communities in an area of economic disadvantage – with the objective of building a self-sustaining Lawyers in Schools programme in Northern Ireland.

Advancing public legal education in schools in Wales

Grant: £68,440
June 22, 2016

The overall aim of this project is to affect a measurable improvement in the legal capability of young people in Wales.

We propose to do this by working to achieve the following objectives:

• Formulate a better understanding of the current levels of, and ways that, PLE is delivered in schools in Wales.
• Increase the number of young people from economically disadvantaged areas of Wales that take part in the Citizenship Foundation’s Magistrates’ Court and Bar Mock Trial Competitions, and Lawyers in Schools programme, as part of their schools’ teams.
• Promote the Citizenship Foundation’s Law in Schools website to schools and legal professionals in Wales to increase the number of schools delivering quality public legal education.
• Ensure that all resources and programmes provided are tailored to Welsh schools and life in Wales, and comply with the Learning Wales curriculum requirements.