'Tune into Babies - Talk Together' was launched by Birmingham City Council's Flying Start early years team and the South Birmingham Sure Start speech and language therapy team.
Debbie Hughes, speech and language therapy co-ordinator, said, 'A range of health and education practitioners recognised that parents and carers needed consistent information on how to support their children's communication development, but there was little co-ordination of messages and supporting resources.
'We were increasingly frustrated in giving general advice about talking to children referred at two years old or older that would have been far more effective if they had been referred earlier, as part of a preventative approach.'
A recent report by the speech and language charity I CAN found that more than half of all five-year-olds start school with poor communication skills but that early intervention is key to turning around children's lives (News, 5 October 2006).
The Tune into Babies campaign involved leaflets, advertising, conferences and workshops emphasising the importance of communicating with babies, and questionnaires and interviews were used to gauge its impact.
Training for early years workers is now in development, backed by council funding.
Linda Mathews, Flying Start manager, said, 'We'd like our programme to be incorporated into existing training and embedded into practice. I think private and voluntary provision is potentially one of our biggest client backgrounds, because it will probably be a bit newer to them.
'In the future, we really want to link it to the Early Years Foundation Stage, and to turn Tune into Babies into Tune into Children and Families as well.'
More information is available by contacting Linda_mathews@ birmingham.gov.uk.
