Speech, Language & Communication Needs

'WellComm' screening in Early Years

As part of Salford’s 0-25 transformation programme, Salford Royal’s speech therapists have teamed up with the council’s Starting Life Well service to introduce a new way of working to help three year olds achieve their potential.

Watch our short film to find out about some of the amazing work that has been taking place.

• As shown in the film, we are using an evidence-based screening tool called Wellcomm. This is a simple and effective way to identify a child’s language skills. It provides a systematic approach to identify children at risk of language delay.
• This project focuses on children accessing three year old childcare funding.
• We are running training sessions and cluster support meetings. These will develop practitioner skills, knowledge and confidence in identifying and supporting children’s speech, language and communication needs.

Speech, Language & Communication Needs Service

Salford City Council and Salford Clinical Commissioning Group agreed to jointly commission support for children and young people with Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN), with Salford Royal Foundation Trust delivering the service.

By aligning all the two contracts the expectation is that the children and young people of Salford will experience an integrated and responsive service, supporting early years and the wider system in the delivery of Getting Advice (universal) and Getting Help (Tier 1 & 2), and providing the opportunity to concentrate on delivering Getting More Help (specialist) provision.

Thrive Model of delivery

The principles of the Thrive model have been applied to this service model, Thrive is a recognised national model which has been adopted by Greater Manchester and is an integral part of the 0-25 Transformation programme in Salford.

The Thrive model will be used to organise the provision of services and to help children and young people with speech, language and communication needs, their families, carers and professionals access the most effective interventions. The least intensive intervention that is appropriate is typically provided first, with the ability to move around the quadrants within the Thrive pathway according to changing needs and in response to interventions.

The SLCN service has produced 'Let's talk terms' - a useful document introducing developmental language disorders and clear definition to be used by all professional and practitioners.

The documents is available in the downloadable section at the bottom of the page.

GM materials for transition from Reception to Year One

In autumn 2020 the Greater Manchester School Readiness programme ran a series of seminars to support transition from reception to year one. Many colleagues from Salford attended these and found them useful.

The series of research webinars included Speech, Language and Communication presented by Michelle Morris and Rebecca Shirt:

For more information and to view all the webinars: see the GMCA website