Whittlesea Community Connections

Partnership at a glance

• La Trobe University and Whittlesea Community Connections (WCC) have developed a placement relationship that brings students into real community service settings
• WCC gains practical support, community benefit and pathways for students to keep contributing beyond placement - while La Trobe students gain first-hand professional experience
• The relationship includes student projects across different parts of WCC’s work, including student legal clinics and Wollert Community Farm
• In WCC’s legal service, La Trobe law students work with real clients under close supervision from lawyers
• The student legal clinics include divorce, civil actions, and Wills and Wishes, which provides simple wills and related documents for eligible community members
• La Trobe students have also undertaken placements at Wollert Community Farm, supporting conservation and community education work.

Case Study

Whittlesea Community Connections (WCC) works across many parts of community life, from youth, employment and settlement services to social enterprise, legal support, gender equity, family violence and community projects.

For La Trobe students, that breadth creates the chance to learn inside a working community organisation. Through placements and student projects with WCC, they contribute to real services while building practical skills for professional life.

WCC’s student legal clinics show one way the partnership works in practice. La Trobe law students work with clients under close supervision from lawyers. They interview clients, take instructions, convey advice prepared by lawyers and assist with advice work and limited casework.

“For the students, it’s getting that direct client contact,” says Elisse Buchlak, Principal Solicitor at WCC. “They’re actually getting real-world experience.”

The student legal clinics currently include divorce, civil actions, and Wills and Wishes. Civil actions can include matters such as fines, infringements, motor vehicle accidents, neighbourhood disputes and consumer issues. Wills and Wishes provides simple wills, enduring powers of attorney and medical treatment decision-maker documents for eligible community members.

For WCC, the clinic model adds capacity in areas of real community need. “We’re the only free will service that’s regularly running in Victoria, so I think that’s really important,” Mrs Buchlak says of the Wills and Wishes clinic.

The legal clinics have also evolved with the partnership. Mrs Buchlak says the model began with a La Trobe-employed lawyer working from WCC’s office to run the clinics. It has since shifted so WCC employs the lawyers and runs the service directly, with La Trobe students continuing to gain structured, supervised placement experience.

Learning from the ground up

Wollert Community Farm offers another example of students contributing to WCC’s place-based work.

Wollert Community Farm, delivered by WCC in partnership with Yarra Valley Water, offers another example of students contributing to place-based community and conservation work. The farm brings together a social enterprise native nursery, conservation programs, community education and First Nations programs.

Charlotte Gordon, WCC’s Biodiversity Coordinator, says La Trobe students began placements at the farm in semester one 2025. Since then, the farm has hosted one student each semester, mostly from wildlife and conservation biology courses or related areas.

Because Wollert Community Farm is still being established, students have been able to contribute from near the beginning. They have helped with revegetation work, set up a native grassland seed production area, supported monitoring programs and helped establish systems for regular flora surveys. They also join weekly volunteer shifts and, depending on their skills, run training sessions with local volunteers.

“It’s very practical and hands-on,” Ms Gordon says.

Students also see what sits behind conservation work, from monitoring systems and funding applications to the practical work required to build a sustainable community organisation.

“It really feels like they’ve helped us set up the farm,” Ms Gordon says. “They get to make a bigger impact than you might normally get to.”

For WCC, students bring conservation knowledge and enthusiasm into a volunteer setting where many local participants do not have formal training. At the same time, they learn how to communicate that knowledge to people with different backgrounds and levels of experience.

The benefits can continue beyond formal placement hours. Mrs Buchlak says some law students return to WCC as volunteers, providing paralegal support. At Wollert Community Farm, Ms Gordon says many students who complete placements continue volunteering or go on to work in the nursery.

Looking ahead, Ms Gordon says she would like to host multiple students at once, building “a bit of a little team” around the farm’s conservation work.

Embedded in WCC’s day-to-day work, La Trobe students are building confidence and professional skills while helping strengthen services and projects with genuine community value.