MCIS is honoured to be hosting Shelley Gilbert at our 2018 AGM. Shelley will be speaking on the importance of language access as it relates to her work.
A University of Windsor School of Social Work alumni, Shelley is the Coordinator of Social Work at Legal Assistance of Windsor (LAW), the southwestern branch of Legal Aid Ontario. With 73 community legal clinics across Canada’s largest province, Legal Aid Ontario is a community service providing assistance to vulnerable populations, specifically low-income Ontarians who require legal representation in areas of domestic violence, family law, criminal law, and immigration and refugee law. The legal circumstances facing vulnerable populations are commonly entangled with social issues; LAW acknowledges this, providing an interdisciplinary service where lawyers and social workers collaborate. Ms. Gilbert has also acted as the Chair of Windsor-Essex Fights the International Growth of Human Trafficking (WEFiGHT), an organization which she founded in the early 2000s.
While human trafficking is typically viewed as an international concern and foreign subject, it is in fact a growing concern in Canada, and Shelley continues to work to bring attention to the domestic acts and costs. Through WEFiGHT, Shelley advocates for victims of human trafficking, and pushes for policy changes to help this population. In 2016, Shelley received the Attorney General’s Victim Services Award of Distinction, in honour of her work supporting victims of human trafficking, connecting them to the proper support systems (e.g. housing, employment, legal aid, etc.), and raising awareness of the complex problem that is human trafficking.
Can’t make the AGM? You can still watch Shelley’s keynote on language accessibility and the impact it has on her work on our YouTube live stream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7F_7ohYzR0