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The Small Circles Language Group project provides training which aims to improve children's language skills, help prevent speech and language difficulties from developing and identify children with communication difficulties. The training shows how using targeted, small groups for circle time can help children develop the communication skills they need.
The training models joint working between SLTs, early years staff and special educational needs coordinators. The project began in 2005 in Barnet for early years settings.
Bebington and West Wirral PCT (BWWPCT) ran the Target Word programme, which was developed by the Hanen Centre in Canada. The programme supports parents to develop a family-centred approach to young children's communication development. It targets the parents of late talkers rather than the children themselves.
Parents attend workshops run by Hanen trained SLTs on a fortnightly basis to help them with techniques and communication strategies. This helps them to support their children to acquire 'target words'.
The Hanen Centre in the UK
arranged for the training to be delivered in the UK through the BWWPCT. The University of Chester undertook an independent evaluation. The findings included parents developing better communication styles and using strategies and also an increase in children's vocabulary scores.
(Extracted from RCSLT bulletin, May 2008)
Birmingham
City Council and the Health Service have joined forces to
produce a series of leaflets called 'Talking Together', which
give parents and carers ideas to help their child listen and
talk.
The leaflets were devised by a multi-agency group of practitioners
working with families, to give parents universal messages
to ensure that all children have the best opportunity to develop
language and communication from birth. They have been extensively
used, supporting the city targets of improving the language
skills of children before entering school; also developing
parents' understanding of the important role they play in
their child's learning to talk skills. This in turn enables
access to services and early intervention to support children
with identified speech and language needs.
Funding was accessed through children's centres for a city-wide
publicity campaign called 'Tune into Babies - Talk Together'
which supports the importance of communicating with babies
using the 'Talking Together' leaflets and other promotional
material.
The promotional campaign launched on 6 March 2006 with advertising
on buses for three months which consisted of plasma screens
and adverts inside and on the rear of buses. Roadside posters
were displayed in high profile locations across the city for
two weeks, and adverts were aired on BRMB and Galaxy radio
stations. In addition, each children's centre received approximately
200 branded products - children's bowls, bibs and mugs - with
the message enjoy listening and talking together, along with
a DVD/CD to be given out to parents. The promotional activity
was to help promote the message 'Tune into babies - Talk Together'
and make parents aware of the importance of talking and listening
to babies and children.
News update Early
years workers to train in baby talk
In 2004, the Speech and Language Therapy
department at South Downs Health in Brighton
were asked to find staff for a two year project called Talking
and Learning Together. This EB4U (East Brighton For
You) funded project came out of the success of the NDC (New
Deals for Communities) project Talk
to Learn, Learn to Talk which came to an end in 2003.
The Talking and Learning Together Project (TLTP) vision was
to develop a local, accessible and integrated service empowering
parents/carers and early years staff to help all children
learn to talk. The aims of the TLTP were to increase the number
of children entering Key Stage 1 with age-appropriate language
skills, and secondly, to decrease the number of referrals
made to the Speech and Language Therapy Service at age three.
The TLTP employed 17 staff across four initiatives which operated
solely in East Brighton: BabyTalk, Toddler Groups, Talk! Play!
Learn! and Foundation Stage staff training.
The results show that there was a huge rise in the number
of children entering Key Stage 1 with age appropriate language
skills, and a significant decline in the number of referrals
made to the Speech and Language Therapy service at age three.
The project's funding expired in March 2006. However its success
helped in highlighting the continued need for early intervention,
and some of the key initiatives have now been integrated into
the city's new Children's Centres.
Coventry Talk Now 'creating confident communicators for life' is a city wide, inter-agency initiative supporting the development of children's language and communication skills. Led by Coventry City Council and Coventry Healthcare NHS Trust, the project has received funding from PPEL.
With aims to support parents and carers, develop a skilled workforce and create a communication environment, the project has included a city wide promotional campaign and featured in the local press. Courses have been set up and delivered to children's centre staff, as well as specific projects targeting parents.
A website has also been developed providing information for parents and practitioners. Visit www.coventrytalknow.co.uk
Hillingdon Council has introduced a programme to help children develop key social skills. Developed in Australia, Play and Learning to Socialise (PALS) uses puppets to help children learn about turn-taking, sharing, listening and helping them manage their feelings of fear, anger or sadness, boosting confidence. The programme works by setting the puppets in social situations, and also uses video scenes, role play activities and songs. It runs over ten sessions and covers social skills and emotional literacy.
Originally piloted in nine early settings, the evaluation showed 98% of children who participated showed a significant difference to those who didn't. The programme now runs across the boroughs in half of the schools and a quarter of the nurseries.
Two consultant speech and language
therapists for the 10 Liverpool
Sure Start Programmes have devised a Language Training Curriculum
for a range of early years workers, supporting the sharing
of best practice between projects and rolling out these ideas
to the new children's centres. In addition the early years
support worker from Netherley Valley Sure Start has a programme
addressing the language needs of the children and families
within the area, which includes the Chatterbox Language project.
This project closed in March 2006.
In 2004 Manchester
Education Partnership established a Speaking and Listening
Strategy Group. This is a multi-agency group, bringing together
professionals who are responsible for commissioning and monitoring
developmental strategies aimed at improving language skills
in babies and young children (0-5), so that all children and
their families have full support and access to good quality,
effective services wherever they live in Manchester.
The group is designed to look specifically at issues relating
to language development and early communication, for all staff
working with children in the 0-5 age range. One of the key
elements is the planning for all newly created Sure Start
Children's Centres to have central social space for eating,
where adults can sit with children to enhance language development.
The strategy includes a focus on the importance of continuous
professional development for early years practitioners. In
2006 two pilot programmes were developed to be delivered throughout
the following academic year. These programmes combine aspects
of previous successful professional development modules developed
for Manchester practitioners, with the incorporation of key
elements of the new Communicating Matters materials from Sure
Start.
Middlesbrough has developed BLAST - Boosting Language, Auditory Skills and Talking - a six-week programme for nursery staff to deliver to all nursery school children at age three teaching listening, memory, turn-taking and group work skills. Read more on Blast or visit www.blastprogramme.co.uk.
Middlesborough has also developed SPARC (Supporting Positive Attention and Reciprocal Communication) which looks at the the social and emotional aspects of communication. It is designed to be used by professionals working with 0-6 in whatever way is appropriate for each individual family. Baby SPARC, written by a physiotherapist, has been introduced to expand the physical aspects for the young baby, encouraging movement in the first six months and helping balancing and positioning. All parents will receive the pack from Children's Centre staff who will do one-to-one visits.
It's Good to
Talk with Babies and Children..in Plymouth is a multi-professional,
multi-agency project across education, health, social care,
the voluntary and independent sector. It was initiated in
December 2004 in response to Every Child Matters, the National
Service Framework for Children, and Change for Children. The
key objective is to 'enhance the early interaction and communication
skills of parents and children aged 0 to 3-years across the
city of Plymouth'.
A single message stressing the importance of face-to-face
communication in the future development of babies and children
has been adopted by the universal services and is supported
by the Talking Tips leaflets. Health visitors are distributing
the leaflets and discussing the content with parents at the
first post birth hearing check. There are approximately 2,500
births per year in Plymouth. Printing cost of the leaflets
was jointly funded by Early Years Education and Speech and
Language Services (Health).
The key triggers for the project were:
- Poor communication and interaction skills at pre-school
and school entry
- Perpetuating poor models of parent and child interaction
- High referral rates to the Children's Speech & Language
Service.
News update National
award for Plymouth project
Babytalk visits in Portsmouth are offered to all families with a baby at 6 months of age. During the home visit advice is given on normal language development, reasons why it is good to think about and support a child's language development, and ways in which parents/carers can facilitate language development. The home visit is delivered by a trained speech and language therapy assistant, and normally lasts just under one hour, giving lots of strategies to talk to babies. Parents are given a free nursery rhyme CD and they are invited to come along to nursery rhyme groups and 'come and sing' groups. Speech and Language therapists work jointly with the Health Visiting service to provide a universal service within certain areas of Portsmouth.
The service has been evaluated both subjectively through feedback questionnaires and objectively using the Sure Start Language Measure (SSLM) with additional questions at age 2 years. Results from both types of evaluation have been positive, with a high percentage of parents being satisfied with the service, and indicating that they have learnt more about language development, and also then at 2 years with the children having more reported words on the SSLM, and with parents responding with more ideas to the question "what can you do to encourage language development".
A two year Time To Talk programme is being run by Sandwell Children and Young People's Trust Partnership to help improve speech and language skills. It aims to boost the language skills and confidence of under fives in Sandwell with workshops, fun art and craft activities and additional support. £2.75m is being invested in the initiative and the Government's Neighbourhood Renewal fund is providing the funding.
'Time to Talk Enabling Children to be seen and heard - an article on the Time to Talk project
The Solihull
Approach is an integrated working model for professionals
who work with families with emotional and behavioural difficulties.
It brings together three well-developed concepts - Containment
from Psychoanalytic Theory, Reciprocity from Child Development,
and Behaviour Management from Learning Theory.
It is a theoretical framework and a practical, comprehensive
resource pack developed by practitioners for practitioners.
It was originally created to support practitioners managing
children with sleep difficulties and has since been expanded
for use with children in primary care settings with feeding,
toileting and behavioural problems.
The Solihull Approach encompasses a resource pack for professionals
in early years settings, a school years pack, a trainers pack,
training modules for professionals and trainers, and a parenting
course. For more information or to book training contact Fiona
Duggan on telephone 0121 7883787 or email fiona.duggan@solihull-pct.nhs.uk
Southwark
Health and Social Care has launched a dedicated section on
its website called Keep Your Language Alive. It is part of
a wider health promotion in Southwark to promote bilingualism
in children and make good advice available. For more information
go to www.southwarkpct.nhs.uk/keepyourlanguagealive
Story Time is a public health
project that enables every child in mid and south Staffordshire
to receive a story CD around the time of their second birthday.
The aim of the project is to equip parents with the skills
to make and share stories and to introduce the art of storytelling
into the family unit, in order to enhance speech, language
and literacy skills during the preschool years. The CD includes
stories that have been created and inspired by the children
and parents of John Wheeldon Primary School storytelling group.
There is an accompanying colour illustrated booklet containing
ideas for parents to help make the most of creating stories
together. For more information contact health visitors Alex
Dudley on 01785 226967 or Anne Hobbs on 01785 223099.
Update:
Sing and Play Every Day is a CD of nursery rhymes and shares the same objectives as Story Time to encourage speech and language development, promote child-carer interaction and enhance literacy skills. Both projects were based on teachers' perceptions that children's language skills on entry to education had deteriorated. These findings came from a survey undertaken by 2 health visitors and a SLT, with permission from the BSA (Wales) to replicate their 2002 study.
The Sing and Play Every Day CD rhymes were chosen by local parents at a Hanen speech and language group and were performed by a local secondary school choir. The involvement of the secondary age children was also an opportunity to raise the importance of nursery rhymes for a baby's language development amongst potential future parents. The CD is distributed to all newborn babies withing six to eight weeks of birth. Surveys with parents were undertaken for both CDs, to find out if they were well received and useful. Findings included parents singing to their child at an earlier age, that rhymes helped to calm babies and 90 per cent of parents played more with their baby.
Stoke Speaks Out
is a multi-agency project, funded by Neighbourhood Renewal
Funds, set up in 2004 to tackle the high incidence of speech
and language difficulties in Stoke On Trent. It aims to support
attachment, parenting and speech and language issues through
training support and advice. It developed from local Sure
Start initiatives which identified that between 60% and 80%
of children assessed in Stoke age 3 to 4-years had a language
delay. The majority of these delays did not require speech
and language therapy input and could be dealt with by parents
or other practitioners. In Phase 1 April 2004 to March 2006, Stoke Speaks Out developed
a multi-agency training framework for all practitioners working
in the city with children 0 to 7-years or their families.
The training has 5 levels, ranging from awareness raising
to detailed theoretical levels. This has been jointly written
by the project team who comprise of speech and language therapists,
a clinical psychologist, a midwife, play workers, teachers,
a bilingual worker and admin staff. All levels have an expectation
that the practitioner will create change in their working
environment. In addition the project has developed resources
for parents including setting up a model for toddler groups
to follow which enhances language development. The project
has launched a new website offering a wide range of useful
and practical information for parents and practitioners to
help with children's language development. It includes activities
for children, handouts and advice for parents and shares good
practice for practitioners.
The project is now in its second phase with a brief to develop
a staged pathway for attachment and communication which has
an inter-agency, city-wide sign up. There are also plans to
develop a menu of resources and training for parents. For
more information on the 'Stoke Speaks Out' project contact
Programme Administrator Alison Walters on 01782 234501.
Update: In 2006 Stoke Speaks
Out launched a new website offering a wide range of useful
and practical information for parents and practitioners to
help with children's language development. It includes activities
for children, rhymes and songs for different age groups, a
section with advice and tips for parents, an area for practitioners
that includes research, training materials and information,
and an area dedicated to Speech and Language Therapy advice.
'Meet the Potters' is a fictional family from Stoke on Trent,
whose family members are used on the site to show how families
can work together to improve the language development of their
children. For more information visit www.stokespeaksout.org
News update Plain
speaking
Nursery Talk is a ‘whole
nursery’ approach currently operating in Worcestershire,
designed to empower nursery staff and parents to stimulate
the language of young children appropriately. Read
more
Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Specialist Community Child Health Services provides a range of services including those focusing on early years communication such as speech and language therapy. Resources for parents are also available from their website. Visit www.leicschildhealth.nhs.uk
Young Children's Voices Network Within Local Authorities is a project led by the Early Childhood Unit at the National Children's Bureau and funded by the DCSF. Focusing on the concept of listening to children in a strategic way, following directives such as Every Child Matters and the Childcare Act 2006, the project aims to provide support and advice to local authorities on the topic with a report due in March 2009. For more information visit www.ncb.org.uk
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