I'm Elyse Shumway, a speech language pathologist with additional training
from CDAC to provide communication intermediary services
in police, legal and justice situations. In many of these
situations, a victim, witness or accused person can
and should rely on communication assistance from a person that they trust
and who knows them well. However, there are other critical times when an impartial
qualified communication intermediary is required, to support a person
to communicate in these settings. Communication intermediaries work in a similar way
to sign language interpreting services. However, we use different techniques
geared to the specific communication needs of a victim, witness, or accused
person. Our role is to support the person to give their best testimony.