Written question WQ82795

The Youth Justice Blueprint and supporting implementation plan sets out the Welsh Government’s approach to the delivery of youth justice services in Wales. The Welsh Government takes a ‘child first’ approach to youth justice ensuring services are child centred and needs focused.

There are three agreed Youth Justice Blueprint priorities; enhancing prevention activity, particularly in view of the potential impact of the current crisis on children’s health and well-being; the development of a trauma-informed approach and the development of a vision for the future of the secure youth estate in Wales.

A vision for the future of secure youth provision in Wales was agreed by Cabinet in January 2021. The Welsh Government and Ministry of Justice continue to work together to develop a delivery model that best meet the needs of Welsh children requiring secure care within the justice and welfare systems and which deliver an integrated trauma-informed service, and respond flexibly to the complex needs of these vulnerable children.

We are allocating a further £500,000 to the Blueprint programme to support projects which strengthen links between women in prison and their children, and help progress the delivery of trauma informed practice to Youth Justice Practitioners. This additional investment helps provide meaningful multi-generational improvements to the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Since the publication of the Talk With Me: Speech, Language and Communication (SLC) Delivery Plan in November 2020, the Welsh Government has been working to deliver its overarching commitment to improve outcomes for children and young people through a fresh approach to promoting and supporting children and young people’s speech, language and communication needs.

The delivery plan has a clear commitment to embed effective speech, language and communications support within the Youth Justice Blueprint. The importance of speech, language and communication support for young people within the youth justice estate cannot be overstated.

The focus of the Talk With Me delivery plan is on early intervention and prevention of speech, language and communication needs. This will reduce the risk of children and young people presenting with challenging and anti-social behaviour, and therefore their likelihood of entering the youth justice system.

Our national speech, language and communication coordinators have facilitated links between the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and colleagues in the Youth Justice Team in Welsh Government to take this work forward.

We are currently working with ESTYN to develop online training for inspectors who assess the provision of education within the youth justice estate. When finalised, the training package and online speech, language and communication awareness raising video will ensure that inspectors take account of the provision of speech, language and communication support within the context of education provision. This will form part of an ongoing monitoring system with a focus on outcomes.