Our capacity to increase access to justice for low-income British Columbians relies on the charitable efforts of more than a thousand volunteers each year. Behind the scenes of hundreds of volunteer lawyers serving clients in clinics, hearing rooms and courthouses throughout BC, hundreds of administrative volunteers work diligently to ensure that our clients receive the timely legal services they need. Our profiled volunteer for January 2016 is Nicole Molinari.

Nicole is a Community Worker volunteer for our Mental Health Program. She heard about the Program through Simon Fraser University’s volunteer engagement office and began volunteering with us at the inception of the Program in July 2014.

Nicole is coming to the end of her Health Sciences and Sociology Honours undergraduate degree at SFU. Her research interests focus on climate change-related insecurity and human trafficking. She also holds a Research Assistant position at SFU. Her values align with the work that we do to increase access to justice, especially for disenfranchised groups. She believes the Mental Health Program does extremely important work by providing legal representation and other support for persons who have been involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act, and who cannot obtain legal aid or afford a lawyer.

She has had the opportunity to work with amazing clients and volunteer lawyers and law students. This volunteer work has provided her with an intriguing position and perspective from which to better understand the mental health care system in Metro Vancouver. This has strengthened her interest in working on research that focuses on and informs policy on progressive, accessible, holistic and fair mental health care.