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What Your Donations Could Fund

Million Lost Voices - Family Support

Ben

I CAN’s Family Support programme will give more parents like Matty’s the vital information and advice they need to help their child progress

Matty’s Story

Matty’s parents were heartbroken as they watched their son struggle to make friends and join in at school.

By the time Matty started at nursery he was often mute and would sit under a table with his hands over his ears. He was aggressive at home, lashing out in frustration.

At school, Matty’s teachers suggested autism, but a paediatrician ruled this out. After a fruitless appointment with an Educational Psychologist, Matty’s parents were advised to see a Speech and Language therapist, who confirmed their fears...

Matty had a severe language delay that would affect his development and the rest of his life. But no support was available.

His parents were devastated, but did not give up. Matty’s mum finally came across ‘Talking Point’, I CAN’s website for parents.

They signed up to an I CAN Family Support Day, where they learned how better to support Matty at home and also about I CAN’s multi-disciplinary assessment service, which explained described the support he needed to progress.

Matty’s father said recently: “I CAN are the light at the end of the tunnel, the glue that mends families who are at breaking point. Thank you I CAN for giving Matty back his smile.”

Improving the outcomes for children and young people with communication difficulties depends on providing easily accessible, accurate information and advice to their parents

  • Families often describe the current system for providing support to children and young people with speech, language and communication needs as a ‘postcode lottery’.
  • In a recent review by John Bercow MP, 77% of families said that the information they needed to help their child was either not easily available or not available at all.
  • If families are to support their child’s development, it’s crucial that they have a good understanding of the importance of speech, language and communication and that information and advice is easily available.
  • Children with severe and complex communication problems need multi-professional assessments, but the standard provision of this is very poorly coordinated.*
  • 80% of young people who are not in education, employment, or training have communication difficulties.
  • 60-90% of young offenders have communication difficulties.*

*All statements are supported by published studies. Please contact I CAN for full details.

To help families with children with communications difficulties, our MILLION LOST VOICES APPEAL aims to raise £500,000. Projects will include:


1. Launching a new ‘I CAN Help’ advisory service to give up to 500 families per month expert advice and information to help their child.

Over the year approximately 6,000 children will have their communication needs better understood and supported.


2. Run and enhance our flagship online information service www.talkingpoint.org.uk

Approximately 240,000 families will check the progress of their child, download fun communication games, get advice on what to do if their child has difficulties and share their experiences.


3. Provide free or heavily subsidised multi-disciplinary assessments to 80 children throughout the year.

80 families will understand their child’s complex communication difficulty and the type of specialist help needed to enable them to make progress.


4. Send our speech and language experts to 20 Family Support Days to offer families face-to-face advice

400 families will be empowered to support their child’s difficulties at home and know what is reasonable to expect their school or local service to provide.