What is Plenet?

Plenet is the Public Legal Education Network established to continue building the body of knowledge of what makes for successful public legal education.

We are a network of organisations and individuals working in the field of public legal education. The range of particpants includes statutory bodies, not-for-profit organisations, legal professionals, researchers, educators and campaigners.

Structure

Plenet is currently supported by a Steering Group consisting of organisations involved in expanding the network and promoting awareness of public legal education in the UK.

Plenet is also supported by a Strategy Group that champions the development of PLE and promotes a better understanding of the value of PLE across Government and beyond.

What will Plenet do?

Plenet will provide a space for practitioners and researchers to share information and ideas, to promote good practise in delivering public education and to improve awareness of the need for and value of public legal education.
The Plenet website will showcase good practice with case studies and analysis of the wide range of activities that involve PLE. The project will also commission and publish articles on key PLE themes to promote debate and discussion.

Many PLE projects of all types and sizes take place up and down the country but they are often isolated initiatives and don't get reported. We will gather reports and contributions from the wide range of organisations doing PLE work. Through sharing our successes, and our failures, we can learn from each other's experiences and add to our common knowledge.

We will build an active network of PLE practitioners to provide mutual support, foster cooperation, and develop new initiatives. Join the network to get a regular newsletter and priority booking for events and our conference.

Events

We will run a series of events through the coming year starting with our launch event on at the Law Society on Tuesday 3rd June. Subsequent seminars will focus on the key themes that will be developed throughout the year.

We will run seminars and workshops and a national conference in early spring of 2009. Join the network and sign up for our newsletter to get early warning of these events.

Themes and projects

Plenet development will focus on key themes that identify areas of greatest need and also of greatest potential. Potential themes include:

• Initiatives that develop practical problem solving skills and confidence. We know most people will face law related problems at some point in their lives. How can we help them develop the generic knowledge and skills needed to deal successfully with these problems?

• Research and analysis of successful PLE projects to draw the lessons and provide models for successful PLE interventions. For example, the Preventing Possessions Project in Southwark undertook a mixed range of successful initiatives. Does it provide a model that can be scaled and replicated elsewhere?

• An evaluation framework for PLE projects. Many projects aren't evaluated and there are no readily available frameworks that deal explicitly with PLE. We will begin the process of developing a framework for developing and evaluating PLE projects.

• There is a need to establish a strong identity and branding for PLE. We will begin this process by talking to branding experts and by undertaking research to find out more about public perceptions of the law and the most effective way to present PLE.

We don't yet have the resources to fund pilot PLE projects but we can begin to build the basis of future projects. This might mean funding a small piece of research to identify the PLE needs of a target group, or putting together a consortium to undertake a project. We may not be able to deliver pilot projects immediately but we can build sound foundations for successful projects in future.