Highlights
Working in partnership with Dingley’s Promise
We’re pleased to have partnered with Dingley’s Promise to share a trio of funded Early Years SEND CPD courses for educators across England.
Funded by the Department for Education, the flexible online courses have been designed to give early years educators practical tools, strategies and knowledge to strengthen inclusive practice and increase confidence in supporting children with a broad range of additional needs.
The three courses cover:
- Foundations of Inclusive Practice – exploring inclusive mindsets, the graduated approach, celebratory approaches, behaviour as communication and meeting the needs of every child.
- Embedding Inclusive Practice – looking at how curriculum, environments, early identification and communication can support every child to participate and thrive.
- Parent Partnerships – developing collaborative relationships with families, approaching difficult conversations and supporting successful transitions for children with SEND.
The training is suitable for educators of all levels and all types of early years provision, including childminders, and can be completed online at a time that suits you, with no extra cost to you or your setting.
Small Cornish charity supported with big plans
Cornwall Accessible Activities Programme (CAAP) has successfully delivered activities for disabled children and their families in school holidays for over ten years. Like many small charities, they struggle to continuously find the resources to support long term sustainability. Just a small number of days’ support from Families First has created a business plan, a policies and procedures review, and we are now supporting funding applications too. This work aims to create the infrastructure for long term sustainability.
Getting it right from start in out of school provision for school age children
As the government rolls out a Wrap Around package of childcare for school age children and their families, we saw a gap that we couldn’t ignore! Children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are far more likely to miss out on their full early years entitlements than their peers, let alone accessing childcare at school age. We know this group of families often need and want to work. We believe inclusion should be at the heart of day to day practice and not an after thought, so we are delighted to be offering a package of training and support to Slough and Enfield Councils which will help achieve that, and reflect the capacity issues faced by both local authorities and the sectors. We are also excited to be thinking big in terms of who the sector is and supporting more join-up across the Wrap Around, Holiday Activities and Food (HAF), and Short Breaks provision.
