Come and join us on the Early Words programme in Lichfield and South Staffs

The National Literacy trust is  working with 12 Local Authorities to trial a package of support that will help children’s centres to identify families in need of support around early home learning. Small Talk is delighted to be co-ordinating this is the Lichfield and South Staffordshire areas. The families we aim to work with do not currently attend or access children’s centre services beyond universal services such as health checks.

The identified families will be supported to improve their home learning by working with trained community volunteers. The families will also take part in a book choice session and will be able to choose up to 3 books. In focussing on improving and increasing early home learning we are supporting families to increase their child’s school readiness and future attainment.

By March 2015 we will have contributed to the development of a package that can be adopted by other Authorities and that will include:

• Training for staff from a variety of referral agencies (health visitors, housing officers etc) to embed a set of home learning indicators into data they already collect (but not creating new bureaucratic systems!)
• Stakeholder mapping support and new partners for children’s centres
• Training for children’s centre staff to use early home learning indicators (EHLIs) and referral information to successfully attract identified families to their services
• Training for children’s centre staff to coordinate our community volunteering
programme and run book choice / book gifting sessions
• Promotion of referrals from the beneficiary parents
The success of the identification framework is very much reliant on positive and
open local partnerships – between Local Authority frameworks and with the
families. What is effectively a process of identifying and supporting certain families
to provide quality home learning environments for their children obviously requires
a high level of sensitivity and should be a positive rather than negative experience
for the families.

The aim is that home visiting professionals and others understand more about the
home learning environment, why it is important to their own work and to wider local
outcomes and how they can talk and work with families in a positive way that leads 44
families to access appropriate and meaningful support. At the same time, we will
be providing children’s centres with skills and knowledge that will help them to attract new, relevant families to their services.


What Small Talk will be doing:
Recruiting and training volunteers, then matching them with the families and overseeing the 6 week support programme. We will also run the book choice /book gifting session (funded by Benoy Foundation). At the end of the 6 week programme the families will be supported to refer others into the programme and encourage them to attend the children’s centre.

What we need you to do:
Attend the training sessions
Support the families over the 6 week period

We'd love you to be  apart of this exciting project. Please email us for an application form on info@smalltalk-ltd.co.uk if you are interested

Bad parenting: the root of all evil?

A controversial statement by Sir Michael Wilshaw, OFSTED's Chief Inspector, cites bad parenting as the root of society's problems as reported on in:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2462110/Sir-Michael-Wilshaw-attacks-hollowed-fragmented-families.html

What do you think? Is he right, are we to blame or is this another attack on parents designed to make us feel more guilty than we already do? I'd love to know your thoughts...........

Using music with your child with ASD

When Franky and I worked at Longdon Hall, which was a residential special school for children ASD and complex communication difficulties, we worked very closely with music therapists. We saw how music could be used to calm, soothe and motivate but also as a powerful means of working on communication skills.

Georgina brought this article, by Ryan Judd, to my attention this week. It makes interesting reading for parents wanting to use music with their children http://expertbeacon.com/helping-kids-autism-spectrum-disorder-bond-over-music/#.UlqBFVDrxHb

Ryan Judd is a board certified music therapist with a master's degree in Music Therapy. He has been in private practice and specializing in children with special needs for more than 13 years. Ryan is known for his ability to connect with and motivate the most challenging of clients through music, humor and drama. Ryan is also the founder of The Rhythm Tree, which is dedicated to educating parents, therapists and teachers on how to use music to help children with special needs learn, grow and thrive. Ryan has an educational video blog atwww.TheRhythmTree.com and has developed an award winning DVD and Music Kit for Children with Special Needs. You can learn more at http://www.therhythmtree.com/store

Small Talk Speech and Language Therapy comes to Derbyshire

Georgina White, speech and language therapist is very excited to be leading Small Talk Speech and Language Therapy in Derbyshire; as she lives in the area. ‘I am particularly excited as I know what great results Small Talk Speech and Language Therapy can achieve as I have been working for Small Talk in the South Staffs area for nearly 12 months; and they have been achieving great results there since 2007.’

Small Talk Speech and Language Therapy are a team of speech and language therapists and assistants who work independently with children, from babies to teenagers. They can deal with a wide variety of speech, language and communication problems including, speech sounds, autism, problems with understanding and expressive language difficulties. They specialise in complex communication and ASD but can see any child about whom a parent is worried. The waiting list is usually less than 2 weeks from initial enquiry.

Small Talk Speech and Language Therapy visit children where they are most comfortable, either in nursery or at home. Georgina believes that this is far better for little ones who may be intimidated by a clinic setting, ‘Sitting with a child on the floor playing with their own toys makes them feel more relaxed so we can establish a rapport much more quickly. This means I can assess the situation more easily.’

Georgina White says, ‘We give parents a choice but, can also support the work of NHS Speech and language therapists.’ This is very important as 40,000 children start school each year without the necessary levels of spoken language (Wright, J., 2008); and a Government report in 2008 showed that this can be as high as 50% of children in some areas (Bercow, J.). But, there is so much that can be done to prevent this and to help when things go wrong.

It is these sorts of concerns and evidence that led Libby Hill to set up the Smart Talkers pre-school communication groups which are for all children to encourage confidence and the best communication possible. Libby Hill says, ‘We can give advice and support to parents of little ones who are not developing their speech and language as expected’. Georgina will be starting Smart Talkers pre-school communication groups soon in Derbyshire; she will also be offering training opportunities for parents and early years practitioners.

To find out more please visit www.private-speech-therapy.co.uk , and http://www.smarttalkers.org.uk/ for current pre-school communication groups; or please ring 0844 704 5888.

We all know that interacting with children is important, but are we RESPONDING to our child’s interactions?

How do children learn new words and use them correctly? Yes, you got it, from us, the adults; and their peers. But, children can watch and listen to adults on the television and on DVD’s etc. is that just as good? The answer is NO! Children need the response of others to help guide their learning of language and communication.

I was really interested to read the following link the other day:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130924091802.htm

Detailing a new study by researchers at the University of Washington, Temple University, and the University of Delaware, appears in the journal Child Development; and they have questioned why learning from video has proven to be more difficult for children to learn words. They have found that it's the responsiveness of the interactions that's key: ‘When we respond to children in timely and meaningful ways, they learn -- even when that response comes from a screen.’ i.e. skype.

This also supports my previous blog regarding the fact that mobile phones can be a barrier to successful and effective communication.

http://www.smarttalkersblog.com/2013/09/mobile-phones-are-huge-barrier-to.html

It is so important to let children know that their attempts at communication are valued and important! To do that, all you need to do is listen attentively, and respond to what they said. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go into elaborate detail of what paint and brush they used to paint their picture in nursery, nor should you just give an uninterested response of ‘that’s nice dear’ etc. Get down on their level, give them plenty of eye contact, use facial expressions and gestures, intonate your voice etc. None of which is rocket science but, it will have wonderful effects on your child’s self-esteem.

As Libby Hill has mentioned previously, Hanen have a great term called 'owling' and we all need to do more of this:

• Observe
• Wait
• Listen

So, take a step back and see every day activities as an opportunity to listen to your child and respond to their communication attempts. You are your child’s ‘model’ of communication!

Georgina White

Would you like to be your own boss, do something you love, make a difference AND have fun?.... you can as a Smart Talkers franchisee?

 

pre-school communication groups

All children can benefit from our award winning pre-school communication groups. They are designed to help develop confident, successful communicators. Spoken language skills are the basis for most educational tasks so the better the speech, language and communication skills the easier they will find it when they start school.

We use puppets, games, stories and songs to make it as fun as possible. We get great feedback from parents, carers and the children themselves! It's not really like working, as it's tremendous fun working with pre-school children.

We have lots of different groups: Small Talkers. Teeny Talkers. Baby Talkers, Chatter Tots and Stories and Songs. There are also lots of other packages for nurseries and projects for schools that we do.

We are looking for franchisees in many areas of the UK or further afield. No experience or qualification required as full training is given. Business support and back-up is an important part of the package. We also have licenses for speech and language therapists so they can run groups in their areas.

We are having an open afternoon so you can find out more::

26th October 2013

2-4 pm

Uttoxeter Fire Station

Cheadle Rd

Uttoxeter

Staffs

Places are limited so early booking advised

www.bookwhen.com/smalltalk

www.smarttalkers.org.uk

Tell us a joke.........

The communication Trust has teamed up with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) to launch Voice Box 2013 – a national joke-telling competition designed to raise awareness of the fun and importance of communication.

RCSLT are inviting mainstream primary and special schools in England to work on their own, or with their speech and language therapists, to hold a joke-telling competition between 2nd September and 4th October 2013. You then send RCSLT the winning joke from your school by Monday 7th October and a judging panel will shortlist the 10 best jokes they receive.

RCSLT will invite the shortlisted joke tellers and their parent or guardian to the Houses of Parliament on Monday 28th October for a national final, hosted by The Rt Hon John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons.

For more information please click here.