Early Intervention Team
Inclusion is at the heart of the early years service and implicit in all its work
For childcare practitioners
The early years service has a dedicated early intervention team who:
- support and make meaningful links both within the early years service and with the wider network of all those working within early years, play and youth - e.g. the individual progress section, the educational psychology team, health, the play service, the childminding service, the voluntary sector and organisations such as Kids, HAFAD and children's centres
- provide training for the private, voluntary, independent and state sector, including childminders and those in the play service, and inset training for staff teams
- set up and support special educational needs co-ordinator and equal opportunities co-ordinator networks for private, voluntary and independent centres
- Engage with the borough speech & language services to identify and support young children's communication needs within the private, voluntary and independent early years sectors
The early intervention team supports local childcare as area special educational needs co-ordinators (area SENCO's), early years and play settings with their special educational needs procedures, their environment and general practice in keeping with the special educational needs code of practice 2001. We also prioritise centres known to have a child who they might need support with. Where necessary we will offer one to two days' support where we will specifically model good practice, which supports those individual children as well as, with parental consent, observation of individual children in order to establish what kind of support the staff need to be providing.
Centres can ring for advice or to ask for a visit at any time.
For parents
If you have concerns about your child and would like the early intervention team to advise and support the centre which your child attends, please speak to the centre's special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) and this will be arranged.
You will need to sign a simple form giving your written permission for the setting to share information about your child with the area SENCO.
