Our Social Services group deals with all aspects of employment and labour law matters that relate to employers in the social services sector. These employers include:

• children’s aid societies
• family counselling organizations
• children’s and youth services centres
• community living organizations and other services for the developmentally disabled
• seniors services
• women’s shelters and crisis centres
• immigrant and cross-cultural organizations
• other local organizations providing services to those in need of assistance

Through our extensive experience in working with social services sector clients, we understand the importance of their primary mandate – to support and protect the most vulnerable members of society. With this in mind, we must often approach issues creatively to achieve a result that will serve the interests of the organization while also respecting the values and interests of the organization’s clients and the broader community in which the organization operates.

• Prevention: We are proactive in our advice and services and help social services employers with a wide range of employment-related issues, such as those relating to employment standards, human rights and diversity, employee attendance management, collective agreement administration, and occupational health and safety. We also frequently consult on policy development and strategic analysis.
• Representation: We represent employers in a variety of forums when an employment-related dispute arises. This can involve representation in arbitration hearings, collective bargaining, labour board disputes, wrongful dismissal proceedings and human rights tribunal hearings.
• Solutions: We provide employers with practical legal advice, helping them solve legal issues in a variety of ways. Our solutions include the creation of service and employment contracts, structuring and documentation of severance packages, resolution of pay equity issues and handling of freedom of information requests.

The Hicks Morley advantage

We bring the full depth of our firm’s expertise to this client group, but recognize that issues in this sector can rarely be viewed in simple “employer/employee” or “employer/union” terms. With our extensive experience  serving social sector clients, we are keenly aware of the political, cultural and socio-economic dynamics that are at work whenever employment issues arise. For this reason, we strive to provide advice that is not only helpful, but cost effective.

With five offices throughout Ontario, we can provide province-wide representation. This also means that we are up-to-date on the latest issues and developments in our practice areas within the varied geographic areas of the province.

Notables

• Collaboration:  We work collaboratively with social services sector associations such as OASIS (Ontario Agencies Supporting Individuals with Special Needs), speaking frequently at conferences and keeping association members up-to-date on legal issues that affect them.
• Education:  We host social services sector client conferences, as well as a number of specialty conferences that cross all sectors, such as pension and benefits, wrongful dismissal, privacy and human rights. We also publish a newsletter for our social services sector clients twice each year.