Our Change Grants provide funding from the Public Purpose Fund for not-for-profit organisations to implement projects that will address issues or gaps limiting people’s access to justice, enabling them to test new ideas and advocate for systemic change. By providing organisations with vital funding, the Victorian Legal Services Board supports innovation in service delivery, education, policy and law reform, helping to reduce disadvantage in Victoria when it comes to access to justice.

In the 2026 Change Grants round, we funded 19 projects over 2 streams, Building Justice and Justice Anew, totalling: $22,994,404.

Within this total, $8 million has been allocated to the establishment of a localised legal response model for disaster-impacted Victorian communities. Led by ARC Justice, the project brings together 7 community legal centres working across regional, rural, and remote Victoria, as well as 2 communities on Melbourne’s greater fringe.

We are pleased to announce the 2026 Change Grants, below.

Congratulations to all successful grantees, we look forward to seeing the progress you make towards improving access to justice in Victoria.

Successful applicants – Building Justice

The Building Justice stream aims to build on what works to improve justice outcomes by supporting not-for-profit organisations to embed, scale and/or replicate transformative initiatives that help more Victorians prevent or resolve their legal problems.

Building justice in the Goulburn Valley: Expanding ARC’s integrated legal and social support model

Advocacy and Rights Centre Limited

$1,000,000 over 3 years

ARC Justice will replicate its established integrated legal/social-support model from Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre (LCCLC) in Bendigo to Goulburn Valley Community Legal Centre (GVCLC) in Shepparton. Dedicated funding streams have enabled the LCCLC team to embed a structured multidisciplinary best-practice approach, where lawyers and social-support workers collaborate around shared clients experiencing issues including family violence and housing instability. This project will recruit experienced social support staff to the GVCLC to embed non-legal client support and formalise community engagement.

Creating a network of school-based health justice partnerships supporting regional and rural families in Western Victoria

Allied Justice (Ballarat and Grampians Community Legal)

$620,100 over 3 years

To increase the capacity of families and young people to address their interrelated family, health and legal issues, this project will introduce a network of school lawyer programs in the Western Victorian local government areas of, Yarriambiack, Hindmarsh and West Wimmera. A locally based lawyer and community development worker will establish referral and support pathways within schools, provide free local legal assistance clinics at key senior schools, and deliver legal and financial education.

Courage to restore

Berry Street Victoria Incorporated

$988,030 over 3 years

When the age of criminal responsibility was raised to 12 it created a critical gap and an unsupported younger cohort. ‘Courage to Restore’ addresses this gap, providing community group conferencing within a restorative justice approach for children aged 10-12 in Ballarat and Moorabool local government areas. This project will facilitate community conferences over 3 years, supporting children at risk of police contact to learn perspective and accountability for concerning behaviours before criminogenic behaviour escalates.

Appellate access to justice: fair, practical support for litigants and the court

Deakin University

$911,646 over 3 years

This project provides structured, court-connected legal support to self-represented litigants in intervention order appeals in the Appeals and Post Sentence Application List of the County Court of Victoria. Appellants must now identify legally cognisable and material error, a threshold that is functionally inaccessible, particularly to those affected by family violence and financial disadvantage. Through early record-based advice and appellate triage, the project clarifies viability and refines meritorious matters. It aims to reduce avoidable hearings while strengthening procedural integrity, court efficiency and access to justice.

Embedding legal education and assistance in men’s behaviour change interventions

The First Step Program Limited

$600,000 over 3 years

By embedding a legal education session within Men’s Behaviour Change Programs (MBCPs) and providing referral pathways for men with complex needs to access specialist legal assistance, this project will address persistent gaps in men’s understanding of legal processes. The goal of this is to improve order compliance, increase resolution of matters through agreement between the parties (where appropriate), reduce the potential for systems abuse and ultimately, enhance the safety of women and children.

Beyond Survival Project: Policing family violence

Flat Out Inc

$1,329,828 over 3 years

Beyond Survival is an integrated socio-legal project responding at the intersection of family violence and policing harms, working to prevent the criminalisation of victim-survivors. Focus areas include misidentification, biased and discriminatory policing and police-perpetrated family violence. This project provides wrap-around legal and social work support to women and children to mitigate risk and harms related to family violence and police duty failures. It will also conduct survivor-led systemic advocacy, research and training to build best practice responses to family violence policing harms, improve outcomes for impacted victim-survivors and drive systemic change.

The Whistleblower Project

Human Rights Law Centre

$752,795 over 3 years

In 2023, the Human Rights Law Centre launched The Whistleblower Project – Australia’s first specialist pro bono legal service for whistleblowers. Since launching, the Project has triaged over 600 inquiries, advised more than 200 whistleblowers and represented about 50 on an ongoing basis. The project has intervened in significant test cases and made a considerable contribution to law reform at a state and federal level.    This funding will upscale the pilot with dedicated senior legal capacity and expanding initiatives to ensure lawyer and client wellbeing.

Collaborative School Lawyer: A community-embedded early intervention model

Merri Community Health Services Limited (West Heidelberg Community Legal Service)

$554,140 over 2 years

The Collaborative School Lawyer project is a community-embedded early intervention model that embeds a lawyer across partner schools and community settings, alongside community engagement worker, to intervene early where legal risk intersects with housing instability, family stress, school disengagement and social isolation. Building on Making Space foundations and evolving the traditional School Lawyer model, the initiative adopts a public health approach to violence prevention and justice diversion.

Safe steps to legal rights

Northern Community Legal Centre Inc

$1,056,565 over 2 years

A successful 2025 pilot with Safe Steps and the Salvation Army indicated that onsite, place-based legal support can transform outcomes for women in crisis accommodation. Building on this evidence, this project will now strengthen and expand Northern Community Legal Centre’s integrated response across additional crisis accommodation sites. The service will deliver immediate legal help, coordinated wraparound support, and seamless referrals by embedding specialist lawyers directly alongside family violence practitioners.

Safer separation: Building a family violence-informed, legally assisted family dispute resolution model to strengthen safety, accountability and lasting legal outcomes

Relationship Matters Counselling and Mediation

$966,300 over 3 years

To improve justice outcomes for Victorian families experiencing family violence, Relationship Matters will strengthen and extend its piloted Family Violence (FV) Informed, Legally Assisted Family Dispute Resolution (LAFDR) model. The project will formalise dynamic risk assessment, embedded legal assistance, child-inclusive approaches and culturally responsive practice within a structured framework. Through longitudinal evaluation, the project will generate evidence to support replication across Victoria and nationally, strengthening safe dispute resolution and reducing reliance on adversarial court processes.

Strengthening hospitals’ legal responses to family violence

The Royal Women’s Hospital

$700,000 over 3 years

Currently, hospital legal teams, whose expertise is often in commercial and corporate law, are increasingly asked for guidance around how their hospital should respond to complex domestic family and sexual violence legal matters – furthermore, other hospital teams are contacting The Royal Women’s Hospital (the Women’s) legal team for advice. This project will support Victorian public hospital legal teams to provide access to justice for women affected by domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV). The project will replicate the Women’s proven family violence training model across the state, by building on the established Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence (SHRFV) program. It will provide expert domestic, family and sexual violence training for legal teams in Victorian hospitals, a consult service for complex matters and sustainable best-practice tools.

Successful applicants – Justice Anew

The Justice Anew stream aims to support the Victorian community legal sector to work in partnerships to implement ambitious, transformational initiatives that will shape the future of legal assistance in Victoria.

Climate Justice Victoria: Embedded Model for Building Equitable Disaster (EMBED) Justice. Strengthening Victoria’s legal assistance sector for a climate-changed future

Advocacy and Rights Centre Ltd

$8,000,000 over 3 years

This transformational collaboration of 8 community legal centres builds a climate-ready legal response model for disaster-impacted communities. The collaboration involves every regional, rural and remote (RRR) community legal centre in Victoria as well as two that service communities on greater Melbourne’s fringe. Key priorities include: 

• Significantly strengthening regional Victorian communities’ disaster preparedness, response and long-term recovery 
• Embedding legal assistance in emergency and recovery systems to ensure timely and co-ordinated support 
• Modernising legal and policy frameworks that reflect climate realities 
• Strengthening culturally safe and trauma-informed practice, including through partnerships with Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations 
• Building organisational capability for climate informed legal practice and community education 
• Complementing the role of Disaster Legal Help Victoria’s referral and co-ordination role by delivering on the local-first principle. This will enable regional communities to prepare and recover equitably and with dignity, reducing long-term disadvantage exacerbated by climate-driven disasters.

Adapting a Proven Remote Service Model to Improve Access to Justice in Rural, Regional and Remote Victoria

Anika Legal

$1,000,000 over 2 years

This project will adapt and embed Anika Legal’s remote, volunteer-powered service model within two regional community legal centres (CLCs), ARC Justice and Gippsland Community Legal Service (GCLS). Using structured workflows and purposeful technology, this model provides ongoing casework for high-volume, procedurally predictable tenancy matters using existing resources.

Services are delivered remotely at times that suit clients and supervising lawyers, including advice, negotiation, preparation for self-representation and, where appropriate, representation. By integrating the model into existing systems and supervision frameworks, both centres will increase casework capacity without increasing headcount, enable earlier intervention, and preserve scarce lawyer time for complex and vulnerable clients.

Outputs include centre-owned processes, system configurations and a replication toolkit for other regional community legal centres.

Infringements Transformation Project

Fitzroy Legal Service

$700,000 over 2 years

The Infringements Transformation Project will provide high-volume tech-enabled solutions to an intractable legal issue which significantly impacts on the most disadvantaged members of communities and takes up considerable resources of the legal assistance sector. The project will harness innovation across community legal centres and cross sector collaboration to transform current approaches to infringements.

Infoxchange – technology for social justice

Infoxchange

$365,000 over one year

This funding will enable Infoxchange to engage with the community legal sector to develop a shared digital solution to improve access to justice in Victoria.

The Portable Justice Project

Northern Community Legal Centre

$500,000.00 over one year

Place-based community legal centres frequently partner with family violence services to support women at highest risk, many of whom move repeatedly across catchments as they navigate crisis, refuge and transitional housing. Each move disrupts access to legal help, requiring them to retell their story and leaving urgent legal issues unresolved at precisely the time when consistent legal help could strengthen safety and financial security. With this funding, Northern Community Legal Centre will conduct user research, develop a feasibility study and prototype for a portable, cross catchment model of legal support that ensures women retain access to legal assistance when they relocate to stay safe.

Place Connect – Connecting Workers, Strengthening Justice

Southside Justice Inc

$600,748.00 over 3 years

PlaceConnect is a staff-facing digital referral tool and shared platform designed to deepen and scale-up Southside Justice’s Partners in Place (PiP) program. It will provide referral organisations a simple, secure place to streamline referrals, track progress, access legal information and communicate with lawyers. Developed with Justice Connect (digital lead) and co-designed with Sacred Heart Mission (pilot partner), PlaceConnect will improve early intervention, reduce administrative burden and enhance client experience through improved coordination. Once refined, the model will be extended to other Southside Justice PiP partners.

Victorian Disability Law Alliance – improving access to justice

Villamanta Disability Rights Legal Service Inc.

$700,000.00 over one year

Villamanta and Mental Health Legal Centre will lead this project with the aim of improving access to justice for people with disabilities across Victoria. For this project, community legal centre partners will investigate system reform, including consideration of governance, management, operations and service delivery. They want to create an evidence-based pathway for further structural reform, including consideration of opportunities for shared services or merger. The project will also draw on a range of data sources to align future provision of legal assistance to unmet legal need.

AI-powered legal intake for CLCs

Youthlaw

$1,649,252 over 3 years

This project will expand access to AI-supported intake tools successfully built and used by Justice Connect to a diverse group of Victorian community legal centres. These centres form the Strategic Youth Law Network, strengthening access to justice – particularly for young people who overwhelmingly seek legal information online. By tailoring the AI intake tool to different service models and communities, the project will enable faster, more consistent triage and referral for people with complex legal needs. The initiative will build shared capability across the network, reduce administrative burden, and support earlier, more effective legal intervention for young people across Victoria.