says Janet Cooper Faith Cross Stoke Speaks Out

Stoke Speaks Out history.. Stoke Speaks Out is a multi-agency City wide programme aimed at tackling the huge deficits identified in children’s language ability across Stoke on Trent In 2001 local Surestart programmes provided opportunities to explore the needs of local populations The speech and language therapists involved in Surestart in Stoke on Trent investigated children’s language skills on entry to nursery The results were shocking…

Results of the initial study There was an average delay of 64% across the nurseries tested In a few nurseries ALL children fell well below expected norms The findings were supported by anecdotal evidence from the nursery practitioners and local health visitors and were reflected in poor outcomes for children in school

Developing an idea The information was shared with a wide range of strategic audiences including the Director of children’s services, council leaders and chief executive of the primary care trust They all agreed that this was one of the City’s priorities and that communication should be everybody’s business

Stoke Speaks Out A project was developed jointly by a range of key agencies The funding also came from joint sources (initially Neighbourhood Renewal funds) The aim of the project was to embed a culture and practice of supporting and developing early communication skills at every level and to make communication ‘everybody’s business!’ This was branded Stoke Speaks Out

The project The project began as a core team hand picked from a range of agencies and led by Janet Cooper- a speech and language therapist The agencies ranged from Inclusion staff, SLTs, clinical psychologists, teachers, early years staff, bilingual support, midwife, play specialists The project also considered anyone within the children’s workforce to be a member of the extended team

The brief The brief was to embed core skills across the children’s workforce through training and mentoring and to create cultural and strategic change

Turning a project into a programme The project developed a 5 tier training framework- written multi-agency, delivered multi-agency to a multi-agency audience The framework ensured that practitioners all started with the same baseline knowledge and encouraged the theory to be put into practice

Activity 4150 practitioners trained between toddler groups have been developed and supported across the City to offer structured play sessions All Children’s centre staff attend the training as part of their induction and ongoing CPD 25 settings have achieved a ‘communication friendly’ award All student midwives and student paediatric nurses receive level 1 as part of their training

The training framework has continued to grow- agencies delivering related courses develop these into level 3 modules These are now being linked to care pathways for some agencies eg ASD ECAT is strategically aligned with SSO ECAT settings have been supported to work towards the level 4 competencies (14 out of 33 have already achieved this) Additional courses written for ECAT have been turned into level 3 ‘bitesize’ courses to offer more widely

Outcomes Speech and language measures 2005 City wide measures: 59% delay 2010 City wide measures: 39% delay Foundation stage profile results: % children achieved 78 points or more with 6+ points in PSED or CLL 2009 this rose to 51% The National average is 52% Level 4 settings are being recognised by Ofsted as Outstanding settings

Engaging a wider audience Need identified to engage with the older age range to break the cycle of poor communication skills training framework developed based on the original model This encourages a wide multi-agency group to identify their role and develop layers of support

Special schools Outreach role of special schools linked into SSO framework Special schools delivering level 3 modules All special schools have achieved level 4 or are working towards this

The future Moving from an expert phase to an empowering phase

Stoke Speaks Out 1.Expert phase: Develop an evidence base of local need Research the causes Identify ways of addressing this need Develop new ways of tackling the issues Trial and perfect the methods 2. Enabling phase Training and supporting the infra-structure to develop skills to support all areas which affect communication development 3. Embedding phase Building in the capacity and expertise within agencies to continue to support and address the local need 4. Empowering phase Sharing the expertise beyond the City and ensuring the ongoing work is self-sustaining

Linking ‘Hello’ The campaign links perfectly with our aims and vision Part of the Hello operations group to share our expertise

Introducing Hello Team meeting to identify how to move forward Multi-agency meeting to introduce and gather wider set of ideas and interest Briefings at a range of events Part of ECAT ELLP sessions Launch day involving all relevant partners Giving the tools, resources and enthusiasm for people to be independent to get involved

Launch day! SAYS… Feedback from the launch yesterday