Labour Children and Education Policy Commission - Delivering a step change in early intervention and the early years

Draft response from The Communication Trust

Early help services – developing a vision for services from pregnancy to school for the families that need them

1)How can we build on the work that Sure Start children’s centres started to ensure families can access these services?

  • From birth to school is a crucial period for children to develop strong and effective speech, language and communication skills, essential to support learning, attainment and good social and emotional development. Many children struggle to develop these skills; and many families require coordinated services to ensure that their child’s speech, language and communication skills are effectively supported, any needs are identified and supported early. Sure Start centres have provided such coordinated services for language and communication, linking universal and targeted approaches in speech, language and communication.
  • The early years services landscape needs to be thoroughly reviewed. Sure Start Children’s Centres were the key mechanism through which under 5s and their families were reached over the last 10-15 years. Now thatthe number of Children’s Centres is significantly reduced (40% will have been closed since 2010) the purpose of the centres needs to be revisited and the means through which young children and their families are supported reviewed.
  • Delayed speech language and communication skills are particularly prevalent in areas of social disadvantage so it is essential that in terms of speech and language specifically, particular areas of focus include ensuring that there is sufficient support for the most disadvantaged children. Despite the existence of the early education offers for two, three and four year olds, the take up of the two year old offer is lower than anticipated and before the age of two the majority of disadvantaged children will not access childcare.
  • The role of Children’s Centres should:
  • Include a real focus on 0-2 year olds, based on evidenced early language and communication activities and preventative engagement, support and intervention, through linking to wider services. International studies show that when a baby’s development falls behind the norm during the first year of life, it is then much more likely to fall even further behind in subsequent years, than to catch up with those who have had a better start.
  • Emphasise support to parents and carers in the first two years of the children’s life, particularly in relation to speech, language and communication, based on the premise that support given early will continue to benefit the children and their parents/carers as they get older
  • Have a key role in ensuring young families access the early education offers (including through the disadvantaged two year old project)
  • Drive the quality of childcare and early education within their area, offering support, training and signposting for all types of settings
  • Ensure that childcare settings within the Children’s Centre locality are effectively engaging with parents and supporting them to give their children a ‘communication rich’ home environment
  • Facilitate and coordinate links between different services, including health and education
  • Sure start centres also provide a valuable way in which parents can engage with services in a supportive manner – sessions such as ‘stay and play’ within Children’s Centres play a vital role in supporting parents and providing an opportunity for signposting and identification. For parents who are struggling, this facilityto see ‘how to do it’ and try things out within a Children’s Centre is really important. With a reduced number of Children’s Centres, it is the view of the Communication Trust that their purpose should be refocused on the 0-2s, to maximise this crucial period for speech, language and communication development, with a lighter touch for the older children although with some support still available until children start at school.

2)What can we learn from examples of partnerships between health services and social workers?

3)How can we improve services for parents and carers of new born babies? And what are your experiences of the services available in your area?

  • Professionals working in services for families with new born babies, health visitors and midwives (and any other professionals who are involved with a family) should be knowledgeable, skilled and confident in sharing information with parents and carers about the importance of talking to their babies from birth and developing early interaction skills between parents and their babies. These professionals also have a role to play in sharing information about typical language development and helping parents whose child may be struggling with this to relevant local additional support. It’s critical that parents are supported to encourage their child’s language and communication development right from the start.Moreover, there is a role for ensuring good patterns are laid down pre-birth and a rising voice for ensuring parents have the knowledge about how their input affects children’s brain development. Ideally, parents should know what to expect, rather than waiting until they are concerned, before they look for information about ages and stages and how to support communication development.
  • The inclusion of the 0 – 2 age range within the reformed SEND system is very welcome, but more must be done to ensure that babies with SEND are identified and supported early. Although the SEND reforms of both the current and the coalition government effectively enshrined the age extension in legislation, anecdotally we’ve been hearing that the implementation of these reforms is not yet achieving positive outcomes for babies and children in these earliest years. It is important to identify services and support accessed by children in this age range and target support for these families via these services. In addition to this, it is vital that there are enough services available and that they are of the right quality to provide all the support that is needed.
  • There is a wealth of high quality support available within the voluntary and community sector. The Trust’s Consortium Catalogue for Early Years and Local Offer page provides information about products and services (free and fee-based) for parents from over fifty different not-for-profit organisations. In addition, the What Works database, a library of evidenced interventions and approaches to support speech, language and communication across all phases, contains a variety of evidence-based interventions that are applicable to an early years audience.
  • The work from NFER on parent support programmes for disadvantaged childrenprovides evidence about the effectiveness of programmes designed to support parents. Although it was published with a schools audience in mind, there are learnings for the early years sector too and it will be a useful resource for service improvement work in this area.The Early Intervention Foundation’s The Best Start at Home reportalso looks at a range of interventions that enhance parent-child interaction with a view to improving attachment and parental sensitivity, and children’s social and emotional development and language and communication. Additionally, there is further evidence regarding the impact of parental engagement as an important early intervention tool from the Education Endowment Foundation’s Early YearsToolkit. This toolkit highlights the high impact that language and communication approaches can have for a child when implemented in the early years.
  • Services that support parents and carers of new born babies need to prioritise the sharing of information with parents about the importance of the home learning environment, quality adult-child interaction and attachmentand their impact on the physical characteristics of the child’s developing brain. It’s possible that for some families, these elements are not a priority within the home (particularly in situations where parents are facing multiple challenges) or parents are not aware of them. The evidence cited above highlights how these early years services can have a significant impact on children’s outcomes and are worth investing in.
  • Children’s Centres therefore play an essential role in supporting parents and carers of new born babies. This should be part of a Children’s Centre wider role in early family support, which we refer to in detail in our response to question 1.

4)What can we do to encourage families to seek out these kinds of services, particularly parenting skills programmes?

  • Universal services that all families have the opportunity to access, such as health visitors, GPs or children’s centres are in a strong position to encourage and support parents to access skills programmes. Providing information about additional support via universal services the majority of parents routinely use is an effective way to share important information and sign posting to all families and those who are harder to reach. In addition, this universal offer reduces the stigma of being provided with skills development opportunities.Further, the vocabulary used is important here - the offer of ‘support for parents’ may be better received than the offer of ‘parenting’ courses.
  • For families with more complex needs, child and family social workers are particularly important multipliers.
  • More can also be done to help facilitate parent to parent information sharing – we’ve had feedbackthat this is a commonly used route for many families. Parent-parent programmes focusing on language and communication development such as I CAN’sCommunication Ambassadors have demonstrated positive outcomes.
  • In addition to universal support for families, it is absolutely vital that parents of children who have been identified as having SEND have access to high quality support and accessible services to help them develop the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to achieve positive outcomes with their child. Additionally, parents of children with SEND often struggle to find the services their child needs. Parents of children with SEND therefore might need access to extra parenting support to support them with understanding their child’s needs and accessing the specialist support that they require. Whilst it’s important that parents who have been identified as struggling received targeted support in this respect, all parents of children with SEND should have support available to them.

A high quality childcare system – delivering an early years revolution fit for modern families

5)How can we change the focus of the early years phase to encourage and develop communication skills?

We very much welcome the recognition of this crucial area as a policy priority. There continue to be too many children starting school without the speech, language and communication skills they need to do well at school and to have positive educational, social, emotional and mental health outcomes. This can be a particular challenge in areas of social disadvantage where in some cases between 40 and 50% of children are starting school with delayed language[1], which puts these children behind from the start in terms of their social and academic development. We know that many early years settings have a strong focus on language and communication, while others do not. To support the focus on language and communication development in the early years we would recommend:

  • Increased training, qualification and support pathways in place to ensure all members of the early years workforcehave a good understanding of:

-The typical speech, language and communication skillsfor the age group of children they are working most closely with. This will support early identification of Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN); we know that under identification is a huge issue for children with SLCN and that communication difficulties can be misinterpreted or missed altogether, meaning that effective, early support cannot be implemented and these children’s difficulties can become compounded as they enter more formal schooling.

-How to support language and communication development at different ages.

-The importance of communication in the development of other skills and elements of wellbeing such as literacy, social development and mental health. It will also be vital that they understand the impact poor communication and language skills can have on children in the long term and the role of the early years in minimising this impact.

Building this knowledge and skill across the EY workforce will ensure early identification of children whose skills aren’t developing as expected, so early support can be put in place.The Communication Trust and our members provide a range of support for early years professionals around the importance of speech, language and communication available on our website here –

  • Ensuring that better qualified early years staff are able to support children’s speech, language and communication development more effectively.[2] All settings with a high intake of children from disadvantaged backgrounds should be required to ensure all staff have training and professional development in speech, language and communication development and each setting has staff members qualified in speech, language and communication at Level 3 (either as part of a broader EY qualification or as a standalone qualification). Early Years Pupil Premium could effectively be used to support this training and development. At present, only 20% of the early years workforce are qualified to Level 3 - considering the profound impact of speech, language and communication development, it is essential that workforce development in this area is prioritised.
  • Supporting EY practitioners to understand the evidence behind communication and language approaches will also help to increase the focus of these essential foundation skills in the early years. The Communication Trust’sWhat Works database and theEEF Early Years Toolkit also provide important information and evidence for those working to support the communication and language skills of children aged 0-5.
  • There needs to be an expectation that all early years settings make communication and language part of their planning, to ensure it’s part of every activity, every day. All too often, language and communication is seen as something that is implicit;a skill that children will develop incidentally. However, we know that children develop their language skills through quality interactions with responsive adults. By focussing on the development of these skills during planning, it will ensure that practitioners are consistently considering their interactions with children and how they are actively supporting speech, language and communication development across the setting.
    Evidence from the Better Communication Research Programme suggests that the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) provides a valid measure of understanding of spoken language[3]. The structure provided by EYFSP supports teachers to think explicitly about communication and language in their planning and supports them to accurately measure pupils’ progress in this vital area, however, it was made non-statutory under the coalition Government. A re-focussing on the role the EYFSP can play in supporting children in the early years therefore would be welcome.
  • For all early years settings to promote a communication supportive environment, both within their setting and within the home. Evidence shows that a communication supportive environment is important for children’s outcomes and therefore should be an important focus for early years settings and practitioners. The strongest predictor of children’s language development is the quantity[4] and the quality[5] of the language children hear in their environment. Research shows that activities that improve a child’s communication environment (the early ownership of books, trips to the library, attendance atpre-school, parents teaching a range of activities andthe number of toys and books available) are a more important predictor of language development at two, and school entry ‘baseline’ scores at four, than socio-economic background alone.[6] So it is not disadvantage per se that causes slow language development, but the fact that disadvantage is so often associated with an impoverished communicative environment[7].
    Save the Children’s Lighting Up Young Brains supports this, highlighting that a child’s home learning environment at age 14 months has an impact on their language development at age three. Research has also found that even if these elements of a positive home learning environment are introduced after the first year or two, it can still have an impact on a child’s early learning.
  • Early years practitioners need support and training to ensure they feel confident in sharing crucial information about speech, language and communication development and shaping the home communication environment with parents. The home learning environment has a significant effect on children’s early language development and early years practitioners areideally placed to support parents to recognise and build on this by effectively supporting their child’s language and communication development at home.
  • Ensure that language and communication continues to have a strong focus within statutory requirements in the early years, such as Ofsted inspection frameworks and the Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Statutory frameworks, which include and highlight the importance of language and communication in the early years and as a central part of children’s development will support ALL settings to have a focus on this crucial areas

6)What assessment have you made of the quality of childcare placeslocally?