12 January 2026
The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) has responded to the Government’s recently published Freedom from Violence and Abuse strategy.
The Government’s strategy, published on 18 December, sets out ambitious targets to halve violence against women and girls within a decade and outlines broad plans for prevention, justice and victim support. However, communication barriers are a hidden but critical obstacle in these areas. While we welcome the strategy’s ambition, we are concerned about its lack of recognition of speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) and the essential role that communication support plays in preventing, disclosing and recovering from abuse.
This strategy assumes people can recognise harm, disclose it clearly, and engage with police, courts and support services — but this is not the reality for too many people with communication difficulties.
The strategy’s lack of recognition of communication disability, difficulty, or difference is particularly concerning given the statutory guidance to the Domestic Abuse Act makes clear that people with such needs may be targeted by perpetrators or experience abuse for longer periods of time because of difficulties they face in explaining what has happened to them, asking for help, and accessing the support available.
This includes people with conditions such as autism, learning disabilities, brain injury or dementia, yet the strategy makes no specific reference to communication accessibility. This omission could leave victims without the tools they need to disclose abuse safely, understand safeguarding information, or give credible evidence in court.
Children exposed to domestic abuse are also at risk of long-term harm to their speech, language and communication development — a factor that is not meaningfully addressed in the Government’s action plan.
The RCSLT calls for urgent improvements, including:
- the Government working with us to ensure that its Freedom from Violence Action Plan reflects the Domestic Abuse Act statutory guidance and includes action on the identification and appropriate response to communication disability, difficulty, or difference
- explicit inclusion of communication needs in all relevant policies
- commissioning of speech and language therapy into safeguarding, mental health and victim support services
- specialist training for frontline professionals in identifying and responding to communication barriers
- communication-accessible adaptations in justice processes.
