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FORENSIC SOCIAL WORK 1: FOUNDATIONAL LAW FOR SOCIAL WORK & HUMAN SERVICE PRACTICE IN CANADA

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Shawna Paris ONS, KC, MSW, RSW-CS, BCCH, PhD (std), brings an exceptional legal background to her teaching, consulting, and forensic social work practice. As a lawyer with approximately thirty years of experience, she has worked extensively with individuals and families navigating some of the most complex areas of the Canadian legal system, including criminal law, youth justice, family law, child protection, mental health law, human rights, and administrative decision-making. She has appeared at tribunals and all levels of courts in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada (R. v.L.T.H. 08), and the Senate of Canada 鈥� Senate Committee on Human Rights.

Much of Shawna鈥檚 legal career has been grounded in access to justice and advocacy for individuals who are often marginalized, criminalized, or misunderstood within legal and institutional systems. Her work as a lawyer provided her with direct, front-line experience representing clients whose legal issues were frequently connected to poverty, trauma, racism, mental health concerns, substance use, family violence, child welfare involvement, and broader systemic inequities. This experience gives her a practical and deeply informed understanding of how law operates in the lives of real people, particularly those who face barriers to fairness, credibility, safety, and meaningful participation in legal processes.

Shawna has also worked within therapeutic and specialty court contexts, including matters involving mental health, wellness, rehabilitation, mitigation, and culturally responsive approaches to justice. Her legal background allows her to understand not only the formal rules of law but also the human, social, and institutional realities that shape legal outcomes. She brings particular expertise in helping professionals understand how mental health, trauma, culture, race, disability, poverty, and social location can affect a person鈥檚 interaction with the justice system.

In addition to her litigation and advocacy experience, Shawna has held significant quasi-judicial, administrative, and human rights roles. She has served as a panel Chair under Nova Scotia鈥檚 involuntary psychiatric treatment legislation, adjudicating complex matters involving liberty, capacity, treatment, psychiatric evidence, and procedural fairness. She is also a certified assessor under Nova Scotia鈥檚 Adult Capacity and Decision-Making Act (ACDMA), bringing legal and clinical knowledge to questions of capacity, autonomy, substitute decision-making, and rights protection.

Shawna鈥檚 legal expertise is further strengthened by her work as a credentialled assessor of Impact of Race and Culture Assessments (IRCA), social context evidence, and forensic social work reports used in legal proceedings such as Gladue Reports. She understands the importance of producing legally relevant, culturally grounded, and clinically informed information for courts, tribunals, lawyers, and decision-makers. Her ability to bridge legal analysis with trauma-informed and culturally responsive practice makes her uniquely positioned to teach professionals how to work ethically and effectively at the intersection of law, mental health, and social justice.

As the current Chair of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, Shawna鈥檚 legal work is also connected to broader issues of equality, discrimination, public accountability, and systemic justice. Her leadership in this area reflects a long-standing commitment to advancing human rights, addressing structural inequities, and strengthening institutional responses to discrimination and exclusion.

Her doctoral studies in forensic social work education further deepen this work. Through her PhD research, Shawna is examining how forensic social work is taught, understood, and developed as a specialized area of practice, with particular attention to practitioner preparedness for legal, quasi-legal, institutional, and justice-related settings. This academic focus strengthens her ability to connect legal knowledge, social work education, and practice-based training in ways that are practical, evidence-informed, and responsive to the realities professionals face in the field.

Through this course, Shawna draws on decades of legal practice, clinical experience, doctoral research, and systems-level leadership to help participants develop a stronger understanding of how the law affects people with mental health challenges and how professionals can advocate more effectively, ethically, and compassionately within legal systems.

Course Overview

This foundational course is designed for professionals who want to better understand the critical intersection of social work and the law in Canada.

Social workers, justice navigators, health professionals, human service workers, advocates, and students are increasingly required to work with clients whose lives are shaped by legal systems. Whether the issue involves child protection, criminal law, youth justice, family law, mental health, human rights, consent and capacity, or institutional decision-making, legal knowledge is no longer optional. It is essential to ethical, informed, and effective practice.

Many professionals enter the field with strong social work or human service skills but limited formal training in how the law operates in everyday practice. This course helps close that gap. It provides a practical, accessible, and justice-oriented foundation for understanding how Canadian law affects clients, how legal systems shape outcomes, and how professionals can advocate more effectively within their scope of practice.

This is not a course designed only for those who want an introduction to forensic social work. It is for anyone who works with people whose lives are touched by law, policy, systems, power, vulnerability, trauma, and inequality.

Why This Course Matters

Law and social work are deeply connected. Social workers and human service professionals are often the people helping clients navigate court processes, child protection systems, mental health legislation, criminal justice involvement, housing instability, family breakdown, disability-related barriers, and human rights concerns.

Yet many professionals are expected to respond to legal issues without having been given the language, structure, or training to understand them.

This course gives participants a stronger foundation. It helps learners understand how legal systems work, why legal literacy matters, and how social work values can inform more ethical, trauma-informed, anti-oppressive, and client-centred advocacy.

At a time when marginalized and equity-deserving communities continue to experience disproportionate contact with legal, health, and social service systems, this course is especially timely and important. Indigenous Peoples, Black and African Nova Scotian communities, other racialized communities, newcomers, people living with mental health concerns, people with disabilities, people experiencing poverty, and those impacted by gender-based violence often face significant barriers to fairness, safety, credibility, and access to justice. Women, girls, Two-Spirit, transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse people may also experience distinct and overlapping forms of discrimination within legal and institutional systems. Professionals working alongside these communities need practical, culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and justice-oriented tools to support clients effectively and advocate with greater confidence.

Why You Should Take This Course

This course will strengthen your professional toolkit by helping you understand how law shows up in social work and human service practice. You will learn how to identify legal issues, understand legal structures, communicate more effectively with legal professionals, and support clients with greater confidence and clarity.

Through course materials, interactive exercises, quizzes, and critical reflection, participants will explore how to apply anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, client-centred, and culturally responsive approaches in legal and quasi-legal contexts.

Participants have described the course as practical, eye-opening, and immediately relevant to their work.

I learned a great deal from this course in terms of understanding how law and social work work together.鈥�
鈥� course participant

Agency lawyers have tried to help me understand how the two disciplines operate together, but this course made a huge difference in appreciating this dynamic.鈥�
鈥� course participant

Not only was it practical, but the knowledge was also immediately applicable to my work.鈥�
鈥� course participant

Who Should Participate

This course is ideal for professionals and students working in or preparing to work in:

• Social work
• Child protection
• Youth justice
• Criminal justice
• Family support services
• Mental health and addictions
• Health care
• Human service delivery
• Legal and justice navigation
• Community advocacy
• Human rights and equity-focused work

It is especially valuable for those who want to bring stronger legal awareness into their social work, clinical, advocacy, justice, or human service practice.

Goals & Learning Objectives

By the end of this four-week foundational course, participants will have a stronger understanding of:

• Canadian law and its relevance to social work and human service practice
• Essential legal concepts for social work, advocacy, and social justice work
• How forensic social work intersects with criminal law, youth justice, child welfare, family law, mental health law, and human rights
• How law and policy shape everyday professional decision-making
• The structure and function of Canadian courts
• The role of social workers and human service professionals in legal and quasi-legal settings
• Ethical issues that arise when working within legal systems
• How trauma-informed, anti-oppressive, culturally responsive, and client-centred practice can strengthen legal-system advocacy
• How to continue building legal literacy as part of long-term professional development

Format

This is a four-week online course. Each week, a new module is released on Monday morning. Participants should expect to spend approximately four hours per week completing the course materials, activities, reflections, and quizzes.

The course is designed to be flexible. Participants can complete the weekly modules at a time that works best for their schedule. Each module includes learning materials, practical exercises, and a quiz to support integration of the content.

The course site is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. While some content may be accessible on mobile devices, participants are encouraged to use a Mac or Windows computer for the best learning experience.

What You Will Gain

Participants will leave this course with more than information. They will leave with a stronger professional framework for understanding how law and social work connect in real practice.

You will gain practical legal literacy, greater confidence in recognizing legal issues, and a clearer understanding of how to support clients who are navigating complex systems. You will also develop a stronger appreciation for the role that social workers and human service professionals can play in advancing fairness, dignity, rights, and justice.

Completion Requirements

Participants must complete a minimum of 80% of the course content to receive a Certificate of Completion from the National Institute of Forensic Social Work.

Closing Statement

Forensic Social Work 1 is a foundational course for anyone who wants to better understand the relationship between law, social work, human services, and justice in Canada.

Whether you are a seasoned practitioner, a new professional, a student, or someone working alongside legal systems, this course will help you build the knowledge, confidence, and ethical grounding needed to support clients more effectively.

This is your opportunity to deepen your understanding of law, strengthen your advocacy skills, and expand your professional capacity at the intersection of social work and justice.

16 continuing education credit hours.

Enrolment is limited to 35 participants.