Southern England Law Centre is committed to providing an accessible, respectful and safe environment for our clients, visitors, staff, volunteers and everyone else who comes into contact with our work.
We recognise that many people who contact us are dealing with difficult, stressful or distressing circumstances. We will treat people fairly, with dignity and respect, and we ask everyone who interacts with us to treat our staff, volunteers and other people in the same way.
Our expectations apply to clients and prospective clients, visitors, contractors, suppliers, interpreters, professional contacts, partner organisations and other members of the public who interact with SELC.
They apply whether the contact takes place:
This reflects SELC’s internal policy, which expressly applies its expectations to clients, visitors, suppliers, contractors, professional partners and other third parties, and to interactions occurring digitally as well as in person.
We ask everyone who deals with SELC to:
These expectations operate alongside our commitment to fair and accessible services. SELC’s policies require client behaviour to be considered in context, including disability, mental health, communication needs, trauma, safeguarding concerns and whether a reasonable adjustment could reduce the difficulty.
SELC does not tolerate harassment or sexual harassment of its staff or volunteers by third parties.
Sexual harassment is unwanted conduct of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of violating someone’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. SELC’s policy recognises that this can occur in person or through email, messaging, social media or video calls.
Examples can include:
You do not have to intend to cause offence for conduct to be inappropriate. We ask everyone interacting with SELC to maintain appropriate boundaries and stop behaviour if a member of staff tells them it is unwelcome or inappropriate.
From 30 October 2026, employers must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and must not permit employees to be harassed by third parties. The third-party provisions cover harassment under the Equality Act 2010, not only sexual harassment. Acas guidance on third-party harassment specifically identifies clients, service users, contractors, tradespeople, people at events and members of the public as third parties.
Our concerns are not limited to sexual harassment.
We may also need to respond where behaviour towards our staff, volunteers or others is:
Our case-management procedures recognise that repeated and unnecessary contact can also become unacceptable where it disrupts service delivery. However, staff must first consider whether the behaviour reflects vulnerability, misunderstanding or a need for clearer communication.
If unacceptable conduct occurs, we will consider the circumstances and respond proportionately.
Depending on what has happened, we may:
These responses reflect SELC’s existing EDI and case-management arrangements, which expressly contemplate communication boundaries, different service-delivery arrangements, conduct agreements, supervised appointments, warnings and, where appropriate, termination of services or other relationships.
We will not automatically stop helping somebody simply because their behaviour causes difficulty.
We recognise that disability, mental health, trauma, communication needs, safeguarding concerns and other circumstances can affect how somebody communicates or behaves. We will consider whether reasonable adjustments, clearer communication or another practical arrangement could help before deciding what response is appropriate.
Where behaviour nevertheless prevents effective representation, is abusive, violent or discriminatory, or presents a risk to our employees, volunteers or others, SELC’s policies allow services to be restricted, withdrawn or refused where there is a proper basis for doing so. Any such decision must also take account of our professional and client-care obligations.
Our client-care procedures separately govern whether SELC accepts instructions and continues to act. Where unusual or high-risk issues arise, existing client-care policy requires those issues to be considered before deciding whether the case can appropriately be managed.
Being sent a link to this page does not itself mean that SELC has agreed to provide legal advice or representation to you.