Youth Justice Service “Highly Commended”

Wrexham Youth Justice Service has been “highly commended” for its work supporting children and young people with speech, language and communication needs in the Shine a Light Awards 2012.

Run by The Communication Trust and Pearson Assessment, the Shine A Light Awards were designed to honour individuals, teams, projects, communication friendly settings and communities that have demonstrated excellence in supporting the communication needs of all children and young people. This included those children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN).

The ceremony took place in London and was presented by radio and TV personality Paul Ross.

Cllr Mike Williams, Lead Member for Children’s Services and Education, said:

“I would like to offer my warmest congratulations to all the staff involved in this work who have shown significant commitment to the communication needs of the children and young people they work with.”

Kathy Weigh, Head of Wrexham Youth Justice Service said “It is wonderful news to be highly commended for our work in the Shine a Light awards. We are really proud of our achievements as this ensures young people understand our expectations of them which help them change their own behaviour, and thereby making Wrexham a safer place”

Anne Fox, director of The Communication Trust said: “Well done to Wrexham Youth Justice Service for being highly commended at these awards. It was an extremely tough competition this year, which made judging very difficult, and to be honoured in this way is a great credit. We will be sharing their examples of good practice to encourage others to follow in their footsteps and do the best for children with speech, language and communication needs”

Chris Hall, from Pearson Assessment said:” This year we have seen some exceptional work being carried out across the UK which has made a quantifiable difference to children with SLCN. Our highly commended finalist should be extremely proud of the best practice they have shared with us and other practitioners. We hope these examples continue to lead the way forward in 2013.”

The awards first took place during the Hello campaign, the national year of communication run by the trust in 2011, to make children and young people’s communication development a priority in homes, nurseries and schools across the country.

To find out more about the winners and the runners up of Shine a Light, visit www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk

(Pictured: From left to right: Adrian Hosford: Chair of The Communication Trust, Natasha Richards: Youth Justice Board, Ani Sutton: Operational Manager Wrexham Youth Justice Service, Alicia Grant: Education Officer Wrexham Youth Justice Service, Amy Ballard: Speech and Language Therapist Wrexham Youth Justice Service and Paul Ross, TV personality and compare for the Award Ceremony)