General Local Offer Response

What needs does your service or activity aim to meet for children and young people with SEND and their families?

Speech, language and communication difficulties and problems with eating and drinking.

We also support children with selective mutism, stammering and communication needs associated with a wide range of medical and/or educational needs. 

We work closely with our therapy colleagues in Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy, and the whole service engages closely with colleagues from education, health and social care. 

What outcomes does your service or activity aim to achieve for children and young people with SEND and their families?

Improved communication skills in a wide range of areas. Specific outcomes are tailored to each individual child's needs, in discussion with the child (wherever possible through goal-based outcomes), family, other professionals where involved and education staff.

How can children and young people with SEND and their families start to use your service or activity?

Access Buckinghamshire SLT Service via our website. On our website we have a Communication Carousel which anyone can access giving information on a range of needs and activity sheets to begin supporting your child. We also have a link to the Progress Checker from the website run by Talking Point (National charity for children with speech, language and communication difficulties under ICAN). Parents of staff can use this to check a child's skills and to help decide if they need to see a Speech and Language Therapist or not.

Please see our website for ideas and activities as well as news.

How is your service or activity fully accessible to children, young people with SEND and their families, for example, facilities, support from staff?

Community facilities in clinics are suitable for disabled people. Otherwise we mainly work in schools and Early Years settings as well as people's homes, so we can access people with disabilities in the environment which best suits them. We also have staff with Makaton signing skills and BSL signing. We offer a wide range of training to staff working within the children's workforce, in order to better support children and their families. 

How do you communicate with children, young people with SEND and their families?

We have a new Stakeholders group which meets 3 times/year with an independent Chair, and we would very much appreciate hearing from any  EY/School staff who would like to join this group, as well as other education, health or social care staff. The purpose of the group is to support how the service develops, and help ensure it is a responsive and is providing a high-quality service for the Bucks community.

We also have a new Parent Engagement Group aimed specifically at engaging with parents to hear their concerns and to make best use of discussions with parents to support the development of the new integrated CYP Therapies service. 

Please contact Amanda Sillitoe to discuss joining either of these groups. Tel: 01296 566045 or via email.

 

What training have your staff and/or volunteers received to support children and young people with SEND and their families?

Our Speech and Language Therapists all hold professional qualifications and are regulated under the Health and Care Professions Council. Our support staff receive in-house training, external job-specific training as required and organisational training under Bucks Healthcare NHS Trust, our employer.

What future plans does your service or activity have for developing its SEND provision, for example, training, facilities?

Speech Link and Language Link assessment packages are now available to all Key Stage 1 children. Read more about Speech Link Multimedia for Schools.