S&L Therapy Provision for
Pre-school Children
Why are good speech & language skills so
important?
• Good communication skills are essential for good learning.
• Children with SLCN are more likely to experience difficulties with
reading, writing and accessing all areas of the curriculum.
• Children who don’t develop good speech and language skills in early
years are less successful in terms of educational attainment,
employment and well being.
(Better communication 2008)
Early and Effective Intervention is key
• Even in the current economic climate of increasingly tight budgets and
frequently changing policies (possibly due to change again after the
election in May), early intervention is the most cost effective way to
help our children.
• If we help them now then we can have a greater long term impact on
their life and in doing so build a better social and economic future for
our country.
• Early identification of needs and effective intervention is essential.
(Department of Health, National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity
Services)
Department of Health National Services
Framework
• Applies to all professionals and other service deliverers who come into
contact with children.
• Key message is that access to effective and individually tailored
services should be the highest priority in order to achieve the best
outcomes for children.
• The early years education setting, children’s centres and family
support services all help to achieve this goal and should therefore be
fully supported and funded!
Key legislation for working with children
UN Convention on the Rights of a Child 1989
Children Act 1989
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and 2005
Protection of Children Act 1999
Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001
Adoption and Children Act 2002
Every Child Matters: Change for Children 2003
Children Act 2004
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2006, updated 2010
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006
Childcare Act 2006
Education (Nutritional Standards & Requirements for School Food) Regulations 2007, amendments 2008
The Charter for Children’s Play 2007, updated 2009
The Play Strategy 2008
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) 2008, amended 2012
Equalities Act 2010
(Sheffield out of schools network, 2014)
• ECM is a shared policy across all schools and
agencies, focussed on achieving five common
goals.
• Parents, teachers and all other professionals
(including SLTs) must help children to
achieve this.
• It informs mainstream and special needs
education policy.
• The NHS plays an important part in
identifying and supporting difficulties in
many of these categories and therefore
needs funding to do this.
• Government initiative created in 1998 with the aim of
"giving children the best possible start in life" for children
under 4.
• Helps to promote physical, intellectual, social and
emotional development with a focus on improving the ability
to learn and preparing all children (regardless of background)
for school.
• 1,090,000 families are using children's centres, up from
980,000 in the 2012 census.
• Funding for children’s centres in England have been cut
dramatically despite the number of people accessing the
services rising.
Cross policy agreement by the
National Services Framework,
Sure Start & Every Child Matters
Early identification
Effective intervention
Prevention
Multi-agency partnerships
Listening to young people and families
Appropriately skilled staff
A need for effective commissioning!
Every Sheffield Child Articulate and Literate
ESCAL focuses on the development of communication skills from 0-19 years by working
with a range of services to raise awareness and to help identify and support children (and
young people) with SLCN.
The benefits of maintaining ESCAL:
• Winner of multiple awards, including (2011) Communication strategy award and
(2013/2014) Working together award for their work with Sheffield’s SLT teams
• Provides resources for children with SLCN including children with Autism and DS
• Focuses on joint-working
• Tailored programmes have supported and raised attainment (e.g. phonics)
• A focus on meeting needs of bilingual learners
The Sheffield Birth to five strategy
The Sheffield 0-5 strategy was planned between 2002-2010
Key objectives:
• Improve collaboration between children centres, health and
social care services and early practitioners
• Provide easier access to services for children and their families.
• The strategy aimed to improve health, social and emotional development and the
ability to learn.
• Tailored support and access to high quality childcare and education services.
• Provision for the most vulnerable children in Sheffield
• Raising attainment and aspirations
• Promoting health and wellbeing
The National Childcare Strategy
Introduced by the Labour government
Aimed to improve affordability, availability to quality of childcare
Enables more parents to take up employment; therefore tackling child poverty
Key objectives:
• All early education and childcare has to reflect
•Quality
•Diversity
•Affordability
•Accessibility
•Partnership
Free childcare and education places for all children aged 3 and 4, and vulnerable 2 year
olds.
SLT involvement
Tier 1
Proactive universal intervention
Tier 2
Advice, support, information, activities
Targeted
• SLT services are involved at
levels 2, 3 and 4 carrying out assessments,
parent groups, child interventions groups,
individual impairment based interventions,
and training for other professionals.
This needs funding!
Tier 3
Specialist area
support for
individual children
Tier 4
Away
from
home
Tier 2 and Tier 3 Services in Sheffield
Tier 1
Proactive universal intervention
Tier 2
Advice, support, information, activities
Targeted
Tier 3
Specialist area
support for
individual children
Tier 4
Away
from
home
13
Tier 2 Services: Drop-in Clinics
• Lots of professionals
• Point of entry
• All services under one roof - easy for people to travel
• Non-traditional way of accessing services
14
Tier 2 Services: Talking Toddlers
• Locality based toddler group
• Focuses on language development
• 2 years old with language delay
• Safe and non-judgemental environment
• Semi-structured therapy and opportunity to skill carers
• Longer periods of observation
15
Tier 2 Services: Other
• “Play and Say” training
• Joint working with other SLT teams to conduct early
identification
16
Tier 3 Services
• Work to access the tier 2 services.
• School based groups:
• Early language groups
• Rhythm and rhyme
• Parent Child Interaction
• Individual language work
• Individual sound work
• Joint groups with other services
17
Tier 2 and Tier 3 services in Sheffield
• Provide services in a way that is accessible and non-traditional
• Location
• Range of different services
• Non-threatening
• Working effectively with other services and other parts of the SLT
service
• More opportunities
• Early Intervention and prevention is key
18
Show me the money!
References
•
•
•
•
Aynsley-Green, A. (2004). National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services: Executive
Summary. Retrieved March, 3rd, 2014, from
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDo
wnload/DH-40496PDF.pdf
The Bercow Report. (2008). Bercow Review of Services for Children and Young People (0-19) with Speech, Language and
Communication Needs. Retrieved April, 11th, 2015, from
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130401151715/https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDo
wnload/Bercow-Summary.pdf
Better Communication: Shaping speech, language and communication services for children and young people
http://www.rcslt.org/speech_and_language_therapy/commissioning/better_communication
Sheffield City Council (2010). The Birth to Five Strategy. Retrieved April, 11th, 2015 from
https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/searchresult.html?queryStr=the+birth+to+five+strategy&currentPage=3&n=10&content_
type=&last_modified=&siteuuid
References
•
•
Morton, K. (2013) Retrieved 12-4-15, from http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1140172/childrenscentres-closing-despite-demand
ESCAL (2014) Retrieved 12-4-15, from https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/dms/scc/management/corporate-
communications/documents/education-skills/schools-forum/2014/Agenda-Items/Sept-2014/5-4-Benefitsof-maintaing-ESCAL-as-a-strategic-and-cost-effective-city-wide-strategy-April2014/5.4%20Benefits%20of%20maintaining%20ESCAL%20as%20a%20strategic%20and%20costeffective%20city%20wide%20strategy%20April%202014.docx
•
Sheffield 0-5 strategy (2010) Retrieved 12-4-15, from
https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/dms/scc/management/corporate-communications/documents/educationskills/adult-community/Sheffield-s-0-to-5-Strategy--PDF--277KB-.pdf
•
•
Sheffield City council early years education and childcare strategy (2014) Retrieved 12-4-15 from
https://eduplugins.sheffield.gov.uk/sop/section5/strategy.htm
Sheffield out of schools network (2014) Retrieved 12-4-15 from
http://www.osn.org.uk/childcare_legislation_and_framework_explained