Pre-school home visiting teaching and support service.
A pre-school home visiting teaching and support service is available for families of young children ( 0-3) with special educational needs and disability (SEND). The service is delivered by the Inclusion Advisory Team (IAT), which is part of Leeds Learning Inclusion Service. SEND home visiting officers use the Portage model to work in partnership with parents to help them become teachers of their own child, working together to identify goals to help children learn in all areas of their development e.g. physical, communication, social, play and learning. A small steps teaching approach is used to achieve these goals.
Following an assessment, the family may be offered home visits, telephone consultations or signposting to other relevant services. The offer is based upon the child and family’s needs. If the assessment indicates that home visits would be beneficial, families are allocated a SEND home visiting officer, who makes regular home visits.
Home visit support is dependent upon the child and family’s progress and their ongoing level of need. There are three main elements to each home visit: structured teaching; child-led play; and family focus.
A SEND home visiting officer supports parents and carers to take an active role in finding out what their child can do, identifying goals, and planning activities towards next steps in their child’s development. Leeds City Council is registered with the National Portage Association (NPA).
The SEND home visiting officers work closely with other professionals involved with the child, for example, ICAN (Integrated Children’s Additional Needs Service) teams, Educational Psychology Team and Health Visitors.
The SEND home visiting officers support to early years’ settings around transition and individual learning plans.
How are requests made to the Portage service?
How are requests made to the Early Years SEND Home Visiting Service?
There are three ways to make a request, dependent upon who is making the request:
parents and carers can make a request by completing Early years SEND Home Visiting Request Form. Also, any practitioner working with the family can make a request if they have the agreement of the child’s parents or carers
all health professionals should complete a Health to Education Notification (HEN), ensuring they have the agreement of the child’s parents or carers
if the child is attending an early years’ setting and the family agree home-based support should be requested, the SENCo (SEN Coordinator) in the setting should complete a One SEND Services Request for Support. The form should be completed on the understanding that the offer will be home-based.
Criteria for accessing the service
Requests to the Ealy Years SEND Home Visiting service can be made in the following circumstances:
the child is aged between 0 and two and a half years of age
the child presents with 50% delay in two or more areas of development: cognition and learning; social communication and interaction; speech and language; social, emotional and mental health; physical; nursing or medical; hearing; vision; and sensory.
the family are living in the Leeds local authority area.
A member of the team will contact parents and carers to inform them of the outcome of the request and the offer for them and their child.
Contact details
Contact details for the Early Years SEND Home Visiting Service:
