Support for your setting

A toddler playing in the leaves

There’s a range of local and national support, training and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) available to help your setting meet the needs of children with speech, language and communication needs.

Local support

Herefordshire Council offers a range of information and resources for schools, settings and early years practitioners, including professional training and development via Herefordshire CPD Online. If you’d like to know more, you can contact the Early Years Team at earlyyears@herefordshire.gov.uk.

National support

The Early Years Alliance offers a range of training programmes, covering areas such as regulatory requirements, best practice and preparation for inspection. They also provide professional development workshops, leading to relevant qualifications.

Elklan Training provides a wide range of accredited speech and language courses for both practitioners and families, including a Communication Friendly Setting programme.

I CAN offers a variety of different training programmes to help support children at every stage of their development, including Early Talk and Early Talk Boost.

Nasen (National Association for Special Educational Needs) offers a range of training opportunities and resources, specifically for early years leaders and practitioners, including an accredited Early Years SENCO Award. You need to be a member to access their materials, although the bronze membership is free.

National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) provides a variety of childcare and early years training courses and CPD, both face to face and online.

Pacey (Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years) offers training, qualifications and online CPD, including a number of free short online courses for members.

Five women having a meeting

Number 7: Great idea

An outstanding day care setting provided play and language workshops, to help parents and carers understand and develop ways to support their children’s communication development.

Over three separate sessions, families were invited to practical workshops covering:

The importance of communication
Ideas on talking and playing with their children every day
Sharing books, rhymes and songs

The themes covered in the workshops were reinforced through information and activity ideas on the setting’s social media page and through the children’s online learning journeys. Parents and carers were also invited to regular story, song and rhyme sessions.