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.