Up to 50% of children are starting school each year without the necessary levels of speech, language and communication development (Bercow report 2008). With the cuts, there is now very little help out there for these children yet if they start at a disadvantage, they maintain this gap for life (Law et al 2013).
We applied to take part in the the Nuffield pilot project but Staffordshire was not successful as people feel its a wealthy area. Indeed, many parts are but there are pockets of real need e.g. parts of Stafford, Cannock, Uttoxeter, Burton upon Tent, Lichfield. Tamworth and Rugeley. We want to target these areas and already have schools/nurseries who are interested in taking part.
We want to run a training course for nursery staff to show them how to run our Small Talkers groups for 12 weeks. This would be for a small group of children via a circle time session under our CIC i.e. not for profit organisation, Smart Talkers Communication Groups. We would offer support for staff and an evaluation of the project. We want to provide materials that they can use with other children too to widen the reach.
The money would be for the training sessions inc. room hire and staff costs, visits to the nurseries, on-going support during the 12 weeks and materials.
We feel strongly that the children are missing out through no fault of their own. The usual funding avenue feel its a statutory service but in reality it isn't. Health and Education argue it's each other's responsibility. We want to address the issue now so we need your help please