Print friendlyHow the training was developed
Training and professional development are key to supporting a partnership approach to working with families and multi-agency service development at local level. Kim Bevan, our former Training Director, now our Training Consultant, has developed a range of training courses to support the change of approach and practice that the Early Support materials first promoted.
Early Support Training has been designed to help local authorities and others deliver training of the highest quality specifically to improve services for families. Reflecting all the principles involved in the creation of the Early Support programme as a whole, the training courses aim to:
- put families’ needs first
- promote and facilitate the delivery of higher quality services
- support parents and practitioners to implement the principles of Together from the Start and Every Child Matters
- support parents and practitioners to achieve the National Service Framework standard 8 – Children and young people who are disabled or who have complex health needs receive co-ordinated, high-quality child and family-centred services, which promote social inclusion and, where possible, which enable them and their families to lead ordinary lives
- promote and facilitate improvements in the experiences of families receiving service support
- enable a partnership approach to working with families and with practitioners from different agencies and from different services.
Early Support training is flexible and adaptable to meet the differing needs of participants be they parents and carers, practitioners or managers. It can be delivered in a variety of settings, in a wide range of formats and in a flexible number of sessions. Guidance on delivery, guidance for managers and support materials for trainers and participants accompany every element of the training.
This website is key to delivering the training. Some of the materials for course participants are on open access on the website and trainers' handbooks and other materials are on password-protected areas of the site.
We have also issued a guide to training for key workers in association with Care Co-ordination Network UK (CCNUK). You can read more about this here.
About our training providers
The provision of training has now been cascaded down to a number of 'approved training providers' across England. They were chosen by a competitive tendering process and have all been trained to deliver the Early Support courses to the highest standards. Some of our training providers come from Pathfinder areas and have broad experience of managing change locally while others are professional trainers drawn from relevant fields. Only approved trainers will be allowed to deliver Early Support courses.
Click here for the list of approved training providers.
Working in Partnership courses
These courses were developed with the support of a working party, with contributions from a number of experts in early childhood, alongside parent consultants. You can read more about this here.
About our accredited courses
Two of our courses - Working in Partnership through Early Support (accredited version) and Supporting children with additional needs and with disabilities - are accredited. You can read more about this on the pages for each of these courses.
Early Support consultants
Early Support consultants are working with local authorities and other agencies to help plan and deliver better integrated services for young disabled children and their families. Each consultant covers a particular region of England. Some consultants are also approved training providers. You can contact any of them to discuss training or other issues - see the Contact us page for details.
National training activity in 2004 - 2005
We conducted a needs analysis exercise across Early Support Pathfinder areas in autumn 2004, which informed early thinking about training. The questionnaire sent out at that time is provided here for information only.
Six regional seminars were held between December 2004 and February 2005 to raise awareness of the programme and inform consideration of the issues involved in implementing Early Support at local level. The programme included presentations, panel discussions between families with young disabled children using multi-agency services and round table discussions about the impact of Early Support and the programme materials.
Local activity in Pathfinder areas in 2004 - 2005
Local, multi-agency events were held in each of the 45 Early Support Pathfinder areas. These events were tailored to meet local need and involved parents of disabled children alongside professionals from early years and childcare settings, health services, social services and voluntary organisations. The purpose of these events was to:
- bring as many people as possible with a part to play in improving multi-agency service delivery to families together in one place to discuss the implementation of Early Support
- plan for multi-agency service improvement
- kick start key working arrangements and secure consistent use of the Early Support Family pack and other materials across agencies
- find out what additional multi-agency training is needed.
About 4,500 people across England attended these events in 2004 and 2005.
Training on specific Early Support tools in 2004 - 2005
A programme of 12 one-day training events was provided in 2004 - 2005 to support people using the Early Support Monitoring protocol for deaf babies and children. These events were delivered by Sue Lewis, who led the development of these materials in 2003/4, with the support of members of the Early Support team. The events were jointly funded by the Newborn Hearing Screening Programme (NHSP) and Early Support.
Training to support the use of new developmental journals for children with Down syndrome and for children with visual impairment is now in development and you can read more about these courses on this website.
A programme of training to support those wishing to use the Early Support Service audit tool was trialled and reviewed in 2005/06 and a number of trainers within Pathfinder areas have now been trained to deliver this programme.