Early Support ? new training and resources for all ages
Just over one in five school age children in England has a special educational need and one in twenty children in the UK is disabled. In 2005, a new initiative called ‘Early Support’ was rolled out which aimed to ensure better support for disabled children under 5 and their families. Based on its success, the coalition government included a commitment to extend the approach up the age range as part of its 2011 Green Paper Support and Aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability. At the same time it has provided new funding to update all the resources for children and young people between 0 and 25 in partnership with parents and young people and provide free key working training.
What is ‘Early Support’?
‘Early Support’ is a way of working, based on 10 principles that try to ensure that services for disabled children, young people and families are joined up and that families have a single point of contact and continuity through key working.
Resources include information on specific conditions; background information on the kinds of services that families need; templates for families to use to bring together all the relevant information about a child’s strengths and support needs; and developmental journals which help families to celebrate their child’s progress. An ‘Early Support’ Ap is also being developed to provide families with the full range of information and signposts.
A wide range of training is available, including training on how to use the developmental journals and free 2 day Key Working training. Bookings for this multi-agency training, which will be available until September 2013, can be made through the website – first come, first served! Attendance at this training will give participants the opportunity to attend further capacity building training, so that learning can be cascaded through settings and schools.
Information about all these resources and training opportunities can be found at www.ncb.org.uk/earlysupport
