Speach and Language Therapy (SALT) - Meetings, agendas, and ...

The Directorate made a bid for £300,000 to fund this increase in staff through
the PCT/LDP process but this was not successful. However, this increase
would have been for all three boroughs and would still have left Barking and
Dagenham Borough with a shortfall.
Law (2000) emphasised the importance of collaboration between local
education authorities and health at a managerial level in the strategic planning
of services if inclusion was to be successful. He referred to the recent
Standards Fund money which services should actively bid for as a means of
improving speech and language therapy provision in mainstream schools.
2.2.5 Working in schools
The move towards supporting children in their school environment was
acknowledged. Therapists needed to become familiar with the demands of
the curriculum and learn how to adapt their activities accordingly, so that
therapy targets could be included in a child’s normal day wherever possible.
It would also be very helpful for all therapists working in mainstream schools
to have a clear understanding of the borough’s Primary English Project and to
see how therapy aims can be fitted into it. Therapists also need to be able to
provide on-going training for all staff in every school that will help them to:
• Better understand the needs of children with a speech, language or
communication difficulty
• Understand what strategies they can use to support the children
• Be more aware of normal speech and language development
• Know whether a child has a difficulty or not
• Use a range of activities that promote speech and language development.
These areas of training need would fit in well to the aims of the Joint
Professional Development Framework. This is a project funded by the DfEE,
(now the DfES) to enable teachers and speech and language therapists to
work effectively with children with speech and language and communication
needs in an educational setting. This was to be achieved by creating an
outline of professional development that could be undertaken jointly and
collaboratively by both professional groups.
Early Years
The speech and language therapy department needs to develop flexibility in
its work places and work closely, not only with EYDCP, but also with Health
Visitors whose focus is usually those who are not yet in any form of preschool
provision. It needs to look at parent programmes such as Hanen and
the Parent-based Intervention Programme (Gibbard 1998), as well as
programmes designed to improve early identification and intervention.
Screening
A number of schools mentioned that this would be useful. The development
of a screening assessment that is sensitive enough to pick up the children
who need it, but yet quick enough to be viable would be a very interesting
project. This development could be ongoing over the next few years,
provided SLTs have caseloads small enough to make it feasible.
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