Early support programme and Portage

The Early Support programme (ES) is a pan-disability initiative to improve services for disabled children under three and their families.

Young children with disabilities and their families need positive, co-ordinated support as early as possible during the first years of life. ES has been funded by DfES over a 4 year period from 2002-2006 to work with a wide range of service users and service providers to support development in the following areas:

Initial assessment of need – so that families are supported from the beginning, when their child is identified as having a disability
Co-ordination/multi-agency support for families – so that families receive co-ordinated support through keyworker systems, better sharing of information between agencies, family support plans and family held records
Better information and access for families – so that families are presented with the information they need in a way that is appropriate and are involved in planning and delivery of services
Improved professional knowledge and skills — so that professionals working with families have the right knowledge and skills to do the job
Service review and development — so that services providers can assess the quality of services in their area and plan for development
Partnership across agencies and geographical boundaries – so that access to good services for families does not depend on where they live.

The outcomes of ES have produced the following resources:

A toolkit to support professionals delivering multi-agency, family focused services to families
A complementary family toolkit to inform and support families
A service audit tool to enable services to check the standard of their provision
A national monitoring protocol to measure the very early development of deaf children.

National Portage Association reports on work with Early Support Programme pathfinders (April 2005)

Twenty-three Early Support pathfinder programmes have worked closely with the National Portage Association (NPA) to develop Portage services to support young disabled children in their areas. This report surveys how that work has progressed, documents regional variations and highlights issues around the development of 'key working' with young disabled children.

The report was drafted in April 2005, so it does not reflect any progress made more recently. The report can be downloaded here.

The extent of Portage provision in England (April 2005)

The National Portage Association undertook a survey of Portage home visiting provision for young disabled children in England during the final months of the financial year 2004-05. This report has been used as a basis for further development work by the National Portage Association over the last year. The report can be downloaded here.

Further development work and training, funded by Sure Start, will continue in the coming year.

Early support programme and Portage

The Early Support programme (ES) is a pan-disability initiative to improve services for disabled children under three and their families.

The outcomes of ES have produced the following resources:

National Portage Association reports on work with Early Support Programme pathfinders (April 2005)

The extent of Portage provision in England (April 2005)

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