0 – 5

This includes children from birth to the end of the Foundation Stage.

Further information

Referrals

Children can be referred at any age, from birth up to the end of the Foundation Stage. Referrals are commonly received from early years support teachers, health visitors, speech and language therapists and social workers. Community paediatricians should make a statutory notification to the local authority when they consider that a child may have SEN under section 23 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Early years settings/schools can also refer to the service. The setting/school should first seek advice from the early years support teacher in deciding whether the referral is appropriate. All referrals will require parental consent.

Parents/carers can also contact the Psychology Service directly, either by telephone, letter or email if they wish to seek advice about their child.

EP work

After receiving a referral, EPs will gather more information about the child by talking with the child’s parents/carers and professionals within an agreed time scale. They may observe the child at home and at their setting/school and carry out an initial assessment. Following this, the EP will advise on appropriate interventions and services for the child and their family and then monitor their progress in consultation with the child’s parents /carers and other professionals.

EPs work in neighbourhood areas covering local communities, early year’s settings, children’s centres and schools. The SEND code of practice (Jan 2015) contains detailed advice on the graduated approach to meeting SEN. This would normally be the framework within which the EP works with the setting or school.

Training

The service offers a broad range of training to local authority family and children’s centres, nurseries, early years settings, local community organisations, parent support groups, local authority services and partner agencies. All training is provided on a traded basis and details of courses provided by the service in partnership with other services can be accessed in the Meeting Individual Needs training offer. Further details are also available by contacting the service directly.