ABOUT AFASIC CYMRU
Afasic is the UK charity established in 1968 as a parent led organisation representing children and young people with speech, language and communication impairments and working for their inclusion in society and supporting their parents and carers. Afasic Cymru is not a service provider; therefore we can offer balanced impartial information.
Afasic Cymru was launched in 2002 and thanks to some funding from the Welsh Assembly Government, we are working from two regions. Jeannette Carr, Director is based in Cardiff together with our part time administrator, Lorraine Mulvaney and Yvonne Brookes the Development Officer who is based in North Wales.
We have recently received notification from the Waterloo Foundation that they will donate some money for us to use to train parents and carers and provide them with information so that they are better equipped to support their children and whilst we are actively seeking other funding sources to continue our work within Wales we do need to make Afasic Cymru more effective, we need a bigger workforce so we have to look to strengthen our volunteer database. Volunteers can be either parents or professionals, everyone has a role to play and so if you are interested, please contact us. We are particularly interested to hear from anyone who would like to join our lobbying group. Speech and language impairments are a hidden disability so we need your voices to raise awareness with Assembly Members across Wales in order to raise its profile.
Afasic Cymru is working towards increasing the participation of young people with SLCI, both within the organisation and in wider society. Last year we launched the Afasic Cymru Youth Awards which proved a great success, and they will become an annual event. We further aim to set up an Afasic Cymru Youth Council. The Youth Council will be facilitated by a speech and language therapist and Afasic Cymru staff and will enable us to get direct feedback and input from the young people on how we can best support them and to give them a voice. If you are a young person or indeed a parent/carer of young person with a speech, language and communication difficulty and you feel your son/daughter would be willing and able to meet up and discuss issues that concern them – then we would be delighted to hear from you.