Type of service: Nursery and pre-schools

The Leicestershire Portage Service is a home-visiting service for pre-school children who have special needs. Portage is based on four main activities: weekly home visits by trained home visitor; weekly written teaching activities designed for each individual child and parents; teaching and recording carried out by the parents; fortnightly supervision of the home visitor by the Portage Manager. Initially, the child's current development is assessed over all developmental areas: cognitive, physical, language, personal, social and emotional development. This information is used to inform appropriate teaching. Parents, Home Visitor and Portage Manager decide on long term (approximately 6 months) teaching targets. These are then broken down into small step activities. One or two of these activities are chosen each week and parents are given help and advice on ways of teaching. The parents keep a record of their child's progress. Each programme is tailored to meet the needs of the individual child. The emphasis is on the positive – finding out and building on what a child can do. Activities are then designed to boost the child's development in those areas where help is needed – from very early motor skills to the more complex task of using language.

Aimed at: Child

Specialisms: Generic