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Home: Children and families: Parents and carers: Special Educational Needs

Support for pre-school children - Portage

Psychology and Specialist Outreach - February 2010
dewsbury.psychology@kirklees.gov.uk

What support do we offer?
  • Portage is a home-based teaching service for the families of pre-school children who show some delay in their development. The service aims to enable parents to teach their own children, in their own homes, supported by weekly visits from a Portage Home Visitor supervised by an Educational Psychologist.
  • What makes it successful?
    • The Portage approach helps parents to see their child in a positive way. It provides parents with the answer to two important questions.
      • What to teach?
      • How to teach it?
    • Portage parents find that their child can learn new skills and the family can take pleasure and pride in their child's success.
    • Central to the Portage philosophy is the emphasis placed on the partnership between parents and professionals in the education and development of their own children.
  • How the service works
    • The family receives a weekly visit from a Portage Home Visitor.
    • The Home Visitor discusses with the parents which new skill the parent would like their child to learn. The skills are usually chosen from the Portage Checklist.
    • The agreed skill and how to teach it are written down on an Activity Chart on which the parent can record the child's progress throughout the week.
    • The Home Visitor shows the parent how to teach the child the new skill.
    • Throughout the week, the parent spends a few minutes teaching the child the new skill. The parent records the outcome on the Activity Chart.
    • On the next home visit, the Home Visitor checks whether the child can perform the skill.
    • A new skill is then discussed and set for the following week.
  • Translation and interpretation into other languages can be provided.
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Who we are
We are a team of qualified Portage Home Visitors and Educational Psychologist who work with young children, their parents and carers in their own homes.
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Contact details
If you have a concern about your child's progress you can contact us either by telephone at the numbers below or by letter. The Portage Team is also contacted at times by Paediatricians, Health Visitors and GPs.

Child & Family Consultation Centre
Temple Road
Dewsbury
WF13 3QD

Tel: 01924 324850
Fax: 01924 324870
Email: dewsbury.psychology@kirklees.gov.uk
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