I CAN Early Talk

I CAN Early Talk is a unique, evidence-based programme designed to aid the communication development of all pre-school children by improving the skills and knowledge of early years practitioners.

I CAN Early Talk includes:

• Accreditation  of settings which provides quality assurance and helps identify best practice. Accreditation is offered at three levels which reflects the needs of settings and their degree of specialisation in children’s communication development
• Training for practitioners on speech, language and communication development and difficulties at three levels and a bursary for a Masters degree in collaborative practice
• Research to support the development of evidence based practice
• A free membership package including the termly Early Talk magazine
• Networking opportunities
• Specialist advisory support from the Early Talk team to help with the development of integrated services for children.

Follow the links to find out more about how these projects are developing. 

Early Talk helps pre-school children develop the communication skills they need for learning by:  

• ensuring communication-supportive learning environments for all children;
• securing effective early intervention for children with a speech, language and communication disability in inclusive settings;
• providing advisory support and information for parents;
• delivering structured professional development, information and advisory support for early years practitioners in partnership with children’s services;
• making a significant impact on meeting the needs of children with a mild to moderate speech and language difficulty, enabling local therapy services to focus resources elsewhere;
• taking whole cohorts of children with a severe and complex communication disability off NHS speech and language therapy waiting lists by meeting their
• therapeutic and educational needs in a single inclusive service;
• providing a rewarding working environment with enhanced job satisfaction for professionals in national shortage specialties.  

The Department of Health funded independent research into I CAN's Early Talk provision. Published in January 2006 it found that I CAN's model provided better outcomes for children with a communication disability, especially those children with severe and complex needs, and that it was a cost-effective model of provision in comparison to other services evaluated.

The Early Talk Programme will operate at three levels within children’s centres:  

• Universal:  All children are supported to reach their potential in developing communication skills and those with specific difficulties are identified and appropriate referrals made.
• Enhanced: In addition centres at enhanced level would support focused interventions for children with language delay and mild to moderate communication disabilities
• Specialist: Specialist Centres would also meet the needs of children with severe and complex communication disabilities  

There will be six components:

1. Assessment/review of the current requirement within the authority and each Children’s Centre. This enables providers to agree the appropriate Early Talk entry level and their targets for development. It is anticipated that 2 or 3 services in each cluster will work towards enhanced or specialist level with the remainder at universal level.  

2. Consultancy and advisory support for each Local Authority and PCT at a more strategic level in order to develop provision to meet the standards at the identified level, through a Children’s Centre cluster steering group.  

3. Identification of workforce development needs and provision of required training and/or training materials. Staff training will be available to all staff working in, and outreaching from, the Children’s Centre. Early Talk training sits at levels 3 to 6 on the National Qualifications Framework.  

4. Accreditation of settings at one of the three Early Talk levels through an external audit process, a resultant “badging” for services and an action plan for further development. Standards used complement and feed into OfSTED and speech and language therapy quality assurance schemes.  

5. Information and materials for families and practitioners including:  

• A new family resource developed for hard to reach families with support from BT and Openreach (5,000 copies of the DVD based family resource will be made available to  participating Children’s Centres, with an option to purchase additional copies);
• Dedicated and regularly updated subsites on http://www.talkingpoint.org.uk/ 
• Comprehensive data base of other services and resources
• A twice yearly Early Talk publication  

6. Membership of I CAN’s UK wide Early Talk Network for staff to develop and share good practice and the facilitation of local networks in order that specialist and enhanced services can support others. I CAN will run the first networking event in each cluster and then provide ongoing facilitation support. 

For further information, contact:

Eva March, Head of Early Years and Partnership Services on emarch@ican.org.uk
Lesley Culling, Head of Early Years and Partnership Services lculling@ican.org.uk

To find out more about the background to I CAN Early Talk and why these activities have developed, read about the pilot of the Early Talk network.