It was with a mixture of sadness and celebration as guests attended the last RCSLT/ Libraries NI tour of My Journey My Voice at the Shankill Road Library on 14 December 2017.  Baroness May Blood was joined by the Lord Mayor of Belfast, other elected representatives and special guests to launch the Shankill based event. 

It was heartening to see how successful this collaborative tour has been in raising awareness of the many obstacles facing people living with communication difficulties have to overcome. The project set out to educate and inform because these issues affect one in five people and there is a need to get this message out to the general public, government policy representatives and politicians to ensure that the right support at the right level gets to those who need it most.    

At the event Alison McCullough MBE, RCSLT Head of Northern Ireland Office spoke about the challenges for those with a communication difficulty. She said: "Although the Libraries NI tour is coming to a close, this is not the end of the road for the My Journey My Voice project. The RCSLT has secured funding from the Health and Social Care Board to develop this concept into a schools project which is really exciting. The legacy of My Journey My Voice will be to continue to raise awareness amongst our young people, and hopefully promote better inclusion for children who have speech difficulties.”