As the lead design researcher in this work, I focused initially on ensuring that we took a culturally-safe, Indigenous-led approach to the work. I forged strong, trusted relationships with VCAT’s Koori Support Team members, resulting in collaboration based on respect and mutual contribution.
My role then shifted towards storytelling as we began to communicate, socialise and embed the strong findings and insights resulting from this work. I shared presentations of this work across multiple forums at VCAT involving executive level leadership, setting the path for future improvements in how the organisation engages with and support Koori people to access justice.
Leading the research engagements alongside the Koori Support Team at VCAT, I focused on truly understanding and respecting the principles of the Australian Indigenous Design Charter to engage the VCAT team as equal partners in the work. Through safe, culturally sensitive design research, including in-depth interviews and co-design workshops, we identified and began to dismantle barriers to participation, significantly informing VCAT's strategies to improve their services for Koori communities.
This project deepened my appreciation for culturally-informed design processes and the power of partnership in addressing systemic challenges. It reinforced my understanding of the complexities involved in ensuring equitable access to justice and highlighted the importance of incorporating indigenous perspectives directly into service design and delivery.
This was also an early experience of responding to presentations of trauma in participants. I learned that I have an intuitive approach to these moments that is compatible with many good practices, but that it’s important to codify and constantly reflect with others.
In 2019, Portable partnered with the Koori Support Team at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to undertake research to understand the needs, pain-points and behaviours of Koori people when engaging with VCAT. This research informed the changes VCAT implemented to the Koori support section of its new website, and laid the path forward for work to define a monitoring and evaluation framework to measure efforts to improve the experience based on our recommendations.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) selected Portable to undertake research about the experience of Koori people coming to VCAT and using the VCAT website, specifically in relation to residential tenancy, civil claims and guardianship matters. VCAT was seeking to understand Koori needs, pain-points and behaviours, as well as actionable opportunities for improving their experience at the tribunal and ensuring appropriate support throughout their user journey.
For VCAT, previous research had highlighted that Koori people face barriers to full participation at VCAT, arising from its current service delivery model. Key challenges included how Koori people are supported to understand the processes, what is required of them at each step and a lack of cultural safety and support throughout the experience. For Koori people, this was resulting in a lower likelihood of engaging with VCAT as a proactive party to resolve disputes, and a higher likelihood of engaging as a reactive respondent to cases brought against them. This poor experience was also leading to lower attendance rates for Koori people at VCAT, and a perception that there isn’t any value to be gained from engaging with the tribunal.
VCAT chose to partner with Portable due to our extensive experience working to understand the unique experiences of people trying to access justice through legal bodies.
The following research goal underpinned the research on this project.
To discover, understand and validate the barriers to participation faced by Koori people when engaging with VCAT's services, in order to provide VCAT with everything they need to know to properly improve their service delivery for this audience (including the VCAT website).
The first stage of our research involved a deep-dive into previous research focused on Koori experiences at VCAT. We analysed this research in order to understand the learning that has brought VCAT to its current position, and to ensure that our own findings and insights were complementary to this previous work.
To build on our early understanding of the experience of Koori people when navigating VCAT’s processes, we conducted an experience mapping workshop with key stakeholders from Aboriginal support organisations. This required me to prepare specific talking points informed by the desktop research, and map the resulting conversation in Miro using connectors and colour coding to aid in the subsequent sense-making.
This workshop aimed to understand barriers to engagement with VCAT and opportunities to improve the Koori experience, from the perspectives of support organisations. In this workshop we heard from Aboriginal Housing Victoria, Consumer Action Law Centre, Elizabeth Morgan House Aboriginal Women's Service, Office of the Public Advocate, Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and Victoria Legal Aid. Additionally, we sought to understand any unique differences in the journey based on the type of list, or the characteristics of different people engaging with the services.