Youth Justice: The experience of Welsh children in the Secure Estate

The Welsh Government should enable a pilot work to be done in Wales on the potential benefits of speech and language therapy for juvenile offenders in custody and on release. This is one of 28 recommendations in Youth justice; the experience of Welsh children in the secure estate, the report of the March 2009 Communities and Culture Committee inquiry published in February 2010. The RCSLT submitted written evidence to the Committee that many programmes and interventions delivered to young people who offend might not be suitable for those with additional learning needs. The RCSLT’s written evidence highlighted the fact that the verbal delivery of many drug rehabilitation and basic skills programmes means participants don’t understand what is being said to them. RCSLT Policy Officer Dr Alison Stroud and Jackie Freer, highly specialist SLT at the Brian Oliver Centre gave oral evidence.