The LCO is starting a new project this summer, on the law around capacity and guardianship, giving me a good opportunity to talk about the process we follow with our projects in a concrete way.
The source of this project is unusual. Our projects usually start with proposals from individuals and organizations, from the legal community, from communities providing other services, from academics and from the general public. In this case, though, we decided that we wanted to further what we had learned and the relationships we had developed through our two "framework" projects, relating to older adults and to persons with disabilities. Neither of these projects deals with a particular area of law; rather, each involves the creation of a set of principles to apply to the law, policy or practice with respect to older adults, on the one hand, and persons with disabilities, on the other.
The first step was to seek the approval of the Board of Governors for the project. Lauren Bates, who has headed both the older adults and the persons with disabilities, and I developed proposals in the law around home care and the law relating to capacity and guardianship. Working on the other projects, Lauren had concluded that both these areas (among others) could benefit from review. Board approval is sought in two stages: first, I bring a proposal to the Board to see whether they think it merits further development and if so, I create a small expert group to help me develop a more comprehensive proposal. In this case, it wasn't hard to create the group through the people Lauren had worked with on the initial projects. The group came from organizations relevant to both communities and individuals with expertise in these particular areas of interest. Of the two proposals, the Board approved the one on capacity and guardianship. This particular approval process is new for us and this was the first time we had used it.
Once it had been approved by the Board, I assigned the capacity and guardianship project to Lauren, the obvious choice given the wonderful work she had done on the two framework projects and the expertise and relationships she has developed through those projects. As she works through the final stages of the older adults final report and drafts the final report in the persons with disabilities project, and as summer begins, she is starting to turn her mind to this new project.
Lauren has already assigned work in the project to Jordan Birenbaum, one of our summer students. She will begin to assemble the project advisory group and will work with them to map out the project. We are now taking longer at the front end of a project to define the parameters of the project, to consider whether we require commissioned papers and if so, in what areas and to develop a consultation plan. She will likely engage in some preliminary consultation even to realize these objectives and will then draft a consultation paper setting out the issues for feedback. We distribute consultation papers (and interim and final reports) to our stakeholders electronically and post them on the website, in French and English.
The next stage will be the pro-active consultations, in different parts of the province and with a variety of groups, and interviews with particular individuals. We plan our consultations to ensure they are accessible and that they are with a range of communities. They may involve focus groups or questionnaires or other formats. With the research, the results of the consultations and the assistance of the advisory group, the next stage is the creation of an interim report.
Our interim reports include draft recommendations to show what we are thinking. We look forward to feedback - sometimes it corrects errors, it often gives a fuller picture now that we are more precise about an issue, it may identify issues that despite our best efforts have not previously surfaced and it provides a good indication of the reaction to what we are thinking. The Board also discusses the interim report, in part a way of ensuring
greater familiarity with the project in advance of their consideration
of the draft final report and in part giving us a sense of where changes might
be required, depending on public feedback to the interim report. It is
important that there be no perception that issues are closed at the interim report stage and that it is clear that we are open to making changes. Although the interim report includes specific recommendations, we believe that this allows people a greater appreciation of where we are tentatively going and makes it easier for people to focus their responses than a general issues discussion. It is called an "interim report", rather than a "draft final report", for a reason: it is only part of the process to creating the draft final report for the Board's approval.
Based on the feedback, as well as any additional research and consultation, sometimes required because of changes in the law or circumstances that have occurred as we have progressed through the project and sometimes because of issues raised in response to the interim report, the penultimate stage is the preparation of a draft final report.
The Board reviews the draft final report, making changes as they consider appropriate. When the Board is asked to approve the final report in the capacity and guardianship project, Lauren will attend the meeting to respond to questions and hear Board members' comments. Once in its final, final form, the final report will be sent to translation, we will turn to our graphic designer for the cover and we will plan a launch and finish development of a post-dissemination strategy.
Of course, as Lauren engages with this project, she will have other work to do and inevitably there will be unanticipated delays. Still, we think we've learned quite a bit from our first round of projects that will help us with our new projects.
The capacity and guardianship project is a mid-size project that will take considerable effort to limit to reasonable parameters if it is to be completed within the next two years. I'll keep you informed as we progress.
