Our story so far

Founded in 1997 by Dr Ruth Marchant and Mary Jones Triangle provides skilled support for children, young people and vulnerable adults in different settings including legal proceedings.

Triangle is now led by our team of Directors; Maxime Cole, Laura Jones, Carly McAuley and Anthony Julyan

Triangle is independent. That means we aren't part of social services, the government, the police or the courts.  We are not a charity or voluntary agency.

We provide specialist services for children and people with communication challenges across the UK. We have particular expertise with very young children and people with complex communication needs arising from impairment or trauma. We are regularly instructed in the most complex and high profile situations, and have been involved in many landmark developments in children’s evidence and in careful, child-centred communication. We also provide training and resources and contribute to national policy and guidance

Triangle provides Intermediary Services to the family and criminal court to support communication during family proceedings and criminal proceedings. We can also help by providing intermediary support for other types of proceedings such as tribunals and extradition hearings

We work directly with children, young people and families, and we teach and advise professionals.  We also provide communication assistance and expert opinion to the courts.

Our mission

Our mission is to reposition children and vulnerable adults in the UK as competent communicators and active agents in their own lives, making a real and measurable difference by:

• Working collaboratively with children and young people to provide innovative, evidence based services.
• Communicating with children and young people carefully, skilfully and respectfully in all that we do.
• Ensuring children and young people’s needs are properly understood and their views heard.
• Enabling children and young people to give their best evidence in legal proceedings.
• Providing effective, child-centred support, advocacy and therapy.
• Promoting the safe inclusion of children who present challenging and/or sexually concerning behaviour.
• Leading research, training and resource development to enable the work of others.

Our values

Triangle’s practice is built on some very clear values:

• All children and young people have the right to learn, grow and take risks, to be respected and to be involved in decisions about their lives.
• Children and young people should be active partners in the assessment of their situations and generally should be approached as the primary client in our work: we aim to avoid placing children or young people in passive, vulnerable or victim roles.
• Children and young people’s needs, including those arising from their impairments or from their experiences, must be properly understood if they are to participate meaningfully and have their needs met.
• Children and young people’s communicative competence can be enabled or constrained by adult behaviour and as part of our role we may need to intervene with adults within and beyond Triangle.

We are committed to working in partnership with children and young people, taking seriously the feelings and perceptions of the child or young person and those most closely involved in their lives. Triangle is advised by several consultative groups of children and young people; these groups help us with our work at many levels.

We have a strong commitment to anti-oppressive practice and to making our service sensitive to individual children, young people and families, in terms of race, culture, gender, sexuality and religion as well as the child or young person’s particular individual needs. Triangle is informed by an understanding of the social model of disability, which recognises the powerful nature of oppression as secondary to a child's impairment. This means many of the children and young people we work with face two different problems: the direct impact of their condition or impairment plus the consequences of growing up in a disabling world.