Service Specification:
Portage is a service for pre-school children with special educational needs. Portage supports families to develop their child’s learning through play, develop their confidence, and enables them to feel included in the community.
We offer both home visits and targeted focus groups of about an hour which involve activities to support your child’s development.
Alongside the individual home visits and targeted focus groups, we offer 8 ‘Stay and Play’ sessions across the county for those waiting, receiving or finished Portage (up to school age). These sessions are a great opportunity for families to meet and chat in a safe and relaxed environment. Information regarding these groups is sent out to families once their child’s referral is accepted.
Our offer extends to some holiday activities, these take place for a week in Easter and 2 weeks in the summer, offering a range of Stay and Play sessions and others focus activities.
There are two teams of Practitioners across the county, these teams are managed but two Senior Portage Practitioners
How to access:
Referrals are usually made by a professional involved with the family, this is done using an Early Help Assessment (EHA).
Service Criteria:
Parents/carers must agree to the referral and understand the aims of Portage, Parents/carers must be available for term-time weekly home visits from a Portage practitioner.
- A child will be between birth and up to 3.0 years of age at the time of referral.
- A child will have significant developmental delays of at least half their chronological age in at least 2 areas of their development.
- A child will not be receiving other targeted intervention for more than 50% of their week in an early years setting or speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, etc.
The below information is required in addition to the information already requested in the EHA.
Section 7:
Information/evidence from appropriate assessments e.g. one of the following must be included in the referral.: SOGS/developmental journal levels/recent care plan/Paediatric letter.
Section 9:
Please use the drop-down menu to select “Portage”.
Contact Details:
Email address: InclusionSENRequests@somerset.gov.uk
This means that the EHA will be received initially by Somerset Direct, who will check that the EHA is completed correctly and is accompanied by any Service specific Check Lists/Additional Information Forms/SEN Support Plans. Somerset Direct will return the EHA to the “Referrer” if the EHA is missing mandatory information or if not accompanied by any Service specific additional documentation. If the EHA is completed correctly and is accompanied with all relevant additional information, Somerset Direct will forward to the relevant Inclusion SEND Service for their consideration.
Please continue to access the EHA document via the Professional Choices Website to ensure you are always using the up-to-date version.