Meet the Team

Dr Val Brooks

Consultant Speech and Language Therapist

Val joined Psychology Associates in early 2018, and is an award-winning clinician and a registered member of the Royal College of Speech and Language. She also provides training and is a popular keynote speaker at conferences. Before joining Psychology Associates, Val’s role within the Devon Youth Offending Service, focused on working with children and young people at risk of social and academic exclusion and offending. Val specialises in providing support to individuals who have a complex Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), language and communication difficulties, and attachment difficulties. Val’s expertise lies in differential diagnosis of language and communication impairments and attachment trauma and has extensive experience in assessing the language development and social cognition skills of older children and adolescents. Val has an interest in the development of mentalization skills in children and young people and the impact of language disorders. Val is trained to provide Mentalization Based Treatment for Children (MBT-C) as well as being ACT trained with a focus on differentiating this approach for young people with communication difficulties.

As you may be aware, on the 14th April 2025 the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) announced changes to the Fair Access limit with a reduction of funding to £3000 and the discontinuation of the separate Fair Access Limit for specialist assessments.

We are currently working really hard to amend quotes for ongoing therapy work to fit within the new Fair Access Limit and working closely with Adopt South West and other local RAAs. We are also working closely with other specialist adoption support providers and therapeutic organisations including DDP connects and Theraplay UK to explore how we can continue to deliver specialist therapies within this limit.

If you are waiting for a new package of therapy please look out for correspondence from ASW or your regional adoption support agency, as they will need to regain your consent for the amended therapy contract.

If you are concerned about the impact of the delay on your family or have questions about the therapy or assessment you are waiting for please get in touch with Ellen or Jen and we will do our best to support you.

We will be contributing to a wider response to this and the following is a link to a petition requesting government action – Petition · Action Against ASGSF Changes (Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund) – United Kingdom · Change.org