YJB system to assess communication needs

Young people with speech or language problems are more likely to enter the youth justice system. Services designed to help rehabilitate them are often unsuccessful if a communication difficulty is overlooked.

The Youth Justice Board’s new electronic system for assessing the needs of young people is set to include a speech and communication element to help identify problems as early as possible.

The existing assessment system, known as Asset, uses a number of factors to decide what level of risk a young person poses and the kind of support they require, but critics say it is too crude in its current form.

Proposals for a replacement of the 12-year-old system, expected to cost in the region of £10m, include a new element on speech and language and are due to be put to ministers soon.

Meanwhile, workshops staged by charity The Communication Trust are spreading best practice about how youth offending teams (YOTs), secure establishments and magistrates should work with young people who have speech and language needs.

Simple strategies
Dave Mahon, programme manager at The Communication Trust, says practitioners should adopt simple strategies, such as allowing young people more time to respond to questions, simplifying the language they use and asking young people to repeat back what has been said to them, to make sure they have understood it.

“We have met with young people who are fairly articulate, but have had absolutely no idea of what ‘remorse’ means,” he says. “If a magistrate asks a young person if they have any remorse, it can have significant implications on the way they are dealt with.”

Mahon warns that beyond implementing such basic measures, budget cuts mean there is little accessible support. In many areas, YOT staff have stopped referring young people for assessment, because they know that resources are not available locally.

“With cuts to budgets and speech and language therapy teams, it is quite difficult to get young people assessed,” he explains. “Our advice is that YOTs should make a referral anyway so that a case for the resource is made over time. They have to apply that pressure.”

Diz Minnitt, lead on speech and language needs at the Association of Youth Offending Team Managers (AYM), estimates there are only around 10 speech and language therapists working with YOTs across the country, and up to four in secure establishments.

He says that while a new YJB assessment tool is welcome, resources to identify need and offer support are vital. “If YOTs don’t have access to resources, how do you accurately identify young people with speech and language difficulties to make sure the court deals with the young person appropriately? Ideally, every YOT should have access to a speech and language therapist.”

Making the case
Minnitt believes the introduction in November of police and crime commissioners, who will have control of large budgets, will offer regional groupings of YOTs the chance to make the case for a therapist to cover certain geographical areas.

He adds that large financial savings can be elicited by targeting the issue at an even earlier stage.

“In Northern Ireland, communication is one of three screening factors for children at the age of three, before they go into education,” he says. “If we can get early screening, identification and support in place, the outcomes will be better and huge amounts of money will be saved.”

Kate Morris, deputy chief executive of the YJB, says the current priority is on “skilling the workforce” to recognise the issue.

Alongside the workshops delivered by The Communication Trust, training on speech and language difficulties will feature in an updated training programme for youth justice workers – which will replace the current juvenile awareness staff programme.

Morris adds that it is up to local authorities to decide whether or not they employ a specialist speech and language therapist.

“We know that therapists are a fairly expensive resource and you are limited to how many young people they can engage with,” she says.

“Our focus is very much around awareness – making sure those working with young people in the system understand the signs of communication difficulties and recognise issues when they are evident.”


The speech and language therapist: Helen Clarke

"Until the end of March, when funding ran out on a six-month attachment, I was working two days a week with Islington youth offending service. I was providing detailed training to members of the team and supporting them to take account of speech and language needs, as well as helping with the adaption of resources, to make them more accessible.

"The work was a bit removed from young people themselves and for only two days a week, which wasn’t enough to even scratch the surface in terms of carrying out therapeutic work. But although I was only there for a short time, I was able to help make some improvements to the way staff worked with young people with speech and language difficulties.

"Some of my time was spent with a ‘victim worker’ who was a police officer by background doing victim empathy work with young people. She tended to use an approach that involved the young person thinking about the impact their offence had on the victim, family and community. She was using quite an abstract method, likening the situation to a football game, but was struggling to make it accessible to a young person with learning difficulties who wasn’t engaging at all.

"I set up a few simple activities to challenge the young person’s thoughts and stereotypes using pictures and material from the internet. We were able to get him talking about people and ideas, and what people might think about him. Adults take it for granted that young people think about themselves in relation to others, but it is very different for young people with speech or language difficulties.

"Learning problems or autistic spectrum disorders can make understanding that concept very hard."