Janet Cooper
Janet is a qualified speech and language therapist who has been working in and around North Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent for the past 24 years. Since graduating from Birmingham Polytechnic in 1988 Janet has had a number of roles ranging from working with pre-school children with developmental delay through to adults with learning disability and elderly care.
She specialised in paediatrics in 1991 and has continued to work with children since that time. In 1999 Janet developed support for 8 local Sure Start programmes. The research gained through the Sure Start work led to the development of ‘Stoke Speaks Out’ in 2004. Janet is the programme manager for Stoke Speaks Out. She currently combines this with a team leader role for community paediatric speech and language therapy in Stoke on Trent. The Stoke Speaks Out programme has won a number of National Awards including the 2011 ‘Hello’ award for Outstanding Achievement.
In 2004 Janet was invited to Downing Street to meet the prime Minister in recognition to her services to children. Janet is the author of the ‘Early Years Communication Handbook’ published by Practical Pre-school.
