The Government responded with an action plan; a Communication Champion, Jean Gross, was appointed to raise awareness of the importance of SLCN and work with delivery partners to improve services; and £40m was pledged to Every Child A Talker, an intervention programme for children from birth to four, with particular emphasis on those at risk of falling behind.
LIFE AT WORK
The early language consultant's role is to support the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the ECAT programme within a local authority. Working with early years teams in a range of settings, the ELC provides support, encouragement and challenge to enable practitioners to develop their professional skills and knowledge. They organise work-based training based on need, guide settings in the self-evaluation of their performance, monitor their auditing process and collaborate with local health and voluntary sector organisations to strengthen support systems.
TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS
Early language consultants have either Qualified Teacher Status (a teaching degree at primary level) or a degree in speech and language therapy. They should also have substantial experience of working with children from birth to five years, expert knowledge and understanding of early language development and how best to support it, and skills in challenging, training and developing early years teams.
A further qualification relating to early years is also expected, along with evidence of relevant ongoing professional development.
There are several ways to gain QTS. You can train to be a teacher while completing a degree; you can train and qualify while working in a school on the Graduate Teacher Programme or the Registered Teacher Programme. If you have substantial teaching experience but do not hold QTS in the UK you could consider assessment-based training.
Speech and language therapists have completed a threeor four-year degree or honours degree course at a UK university. With a balance of both theoretical and practical components, areas of study include language pathology and therapeutics, speech and language sciences and behavioural sciences.
Awarding bodies, including CACHE, offer supporting qualifications at Level 3 in areas such as playwork and early years practice. Professional development qualifications are also available at Level 4 for managers, lead senior practitioners, peripatetic advisers and support workers in childcare and education settings.
FURTHER INFORMATION
- - The Bercow Review, July 2009. www.dcsf.gov.uk
- - Better communication: An action plan to improve services for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs (Dec 2008) www.dcsf.gov.uk
- - CACHE www.cache.org.uk
- - Speech and Language Therapy, www.nhscareers.nhs.uk
- - Training and Development Agency for Schools, www.tda.gov.uk/recruit
- - National Literacy Trust, www.literacytrust.org.uk
CASE STUDY - Janette Graves
Employer: Sheffield Early Years Advisers Team
Janette was seconded from her post as speech and language therapist for Sheffield NHS in December 2008, where she worked with two to four year-olds co-ordinating group therapy and parent-child interaction therapy.
Now working under the direction of Sheffield's early years advisers, she is responsible for 29 settings involved in the ECAT programme. During a typical week, Janette gives bespoke training to the settings' staff, demonstrates group work or activities with the children, supports communication with Makaton signing, plans and attends parent workshops and leads group discussions.
Janette says, 'The role of early language consultant has been the most challenging of my career and a very steep learning curve. I feel that I have developed both personally and professionally and have so much more confidence and so many more varied skills than when I started.'
Janette works alongside each setting's early language lead practitioner (ELLP) to strengthen their good practice. This is then filtered down through their teams. She plans and chairs a monthly cluster meeting for ELLPs where they discuss all areas of speech, language and communication and share ideas and successes.
Janette supports the settings' parent participation programmes. Gardening, cooking and den building were the themes of workshops where parents joined in with their children and staff and discovered the opportunities for talking.
A major element of the ECAT programme is the child audit. Janette trains ELLPs to monitor the progress of a child's speech, language and communication skills by observing alongside them and discussing findings. Using the ECAT observation and assessment tool, Janette helps the workforce to identify children 'at risk' of difficulties, 'on target', and 'ahead' of target. She oversees the collation of each setting's findings and the data is eventually incorporated into regional and national figures.
Contributing to the ECAT programme has been hugely rewarding for Janette. 'I am so glad that I had the opportunity to be involved in such a great project. Over the past year, I have met some fantastic people and had some great experiences.'
