Commissioning Speech and Language service provision in Essex Youth Offending Service (Essex YOS)

1. Purpose. This PIN seeks agreement to award a contract provide Speech and Language Therapy provision to children and young people receiving support from Essex Youth Offending Service and to support staff with screening, assessment and intervention processes.

2. Essex YOS seeks to commission 2 full time Band 7 Speech and Language Therapists to work directly in each locality Youth Offending Team (YOT) in Essex County (0.5 fulltime equivalent per YOT) for a period of 2 years 2023 - 2025.

3. Background: Essex YOS has for a number of years sought to secure speech and language services to be delivered as part of Essex YOS' assessment and intervention processes. The need for Speech and Language Therapy in justice settings across England and Wales is generally well researched and acknowledged:

"Young offenders with DLD are more than twice as likely to reoffend than their unaffected offending peers. DLD is a powerful predictor of recidivism above and beyond other known risk factors"

Developmental language disorders and risk of recidivism among young offenders: Maxine Winstanley, Roger T. Webb, Gina Conti-Ramsden. First published: 14 July 2020 https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.13299

"In a Youth Offending Service all new entrants to the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP) were screened and 65% (49) required speech and language therapy intervention. A significant number (20%) scored at the 'severely delayed' level on standardised assessment and 6% as 'very severely delayed'.

Gregory, Bryan, 2009, in https://www.rcslt.org/wp-content/uploads/media/Project/RCSLT/justice-evidence-base2017-1.pdf 2017

The Youth Justice Board and the Government have also published joint guidance on delivering SLT services within YOTs:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/speech-language-and-communication-needs-in-the-youth-justice-system/practice-advice-speech-language-and-communication-needs-slcn-in-the-youth-justice-system

3.1 In England and Wales, Speech and Language Therapy services are now provided to more the two thirds of Youth Justice Services, with an increase seen in West Midlands and West of England YOTs where almost every service has SLTs directly available.

4. Roles and responsibilities: Lead contact management and service oversight to sit with Essex YOS ETE Manager / Head of Service and the provider's senior officer

4.1 Employment, supervision and support: The provider would remain the employer, with post-holders accessing supervision and support through their own employer clinical supervision. Supervision of SLTs within Essex YOS will be on a matrix-management basis. Consideration around supervision and support included linking with EPs and YOT CAMHS workers (provided by NELFT).

4.2 Recruitment: all activities to be actions be the provider. Lack of recruitment should not impact on local SLT provision, and that the roles be considered a new positions in addition to local services.

5. Costs: Indicative cos