Wye Valley NHS Trust

Compassion, accountability, respect and excellence

Training

In addition to our core service, the speech and language therapy team is now able to offer a range of courses designed to suit practitioners and from a variety of childcare and educational settings. Some of the courses are also suitable for parents/carers. All of these courses provide practical everyday strategies, as well as teaching some more in-depth approaches to promote successful communication.

Our training team

All of our trainers are speech and language therapists and have experience in delivering training for professionals, parents and carers.

Elklan

We offer the following Elklan courses for practitioners:

Speech and language support for 0-3’s
Speech and language support for under 5’s
Speech and language support for 5-11’s
Speech and language support for 11-16’s
Communication support for children with complex needs
Speech and language support for children and young people with severe learning difficulties

The cost is £285 per person. This includes a copy of the relevant language builders book and accreditation. Course participants have the option of completing a portfolio and gaining accreditation via APT Awards.

We also have a range of courses that can be delivered to parents at a cost of £220 accredited or £195 non-accredited, as follows:

Let’s talk with your baby
Let’s talk with under 5’s
Let’s talk with 5-9’s
Let’s talk with special children

Signalong

Introductory course -This course is delivered over one full day, with a one and a half hour follow up session. It provides a useful introduction to Signalong and how it can be used to support children and adults. It will enable course participants to interpret and produce signs from any Signalong manual with an emphasis on the practical application of signing. £95 per person.

Foundation course - this course is delivered over seven sessions, which consists of two hours for each session. The foundation course further develops skills to a level where practitioners can apply signing in their own environment and includes some elements of communication theory. The cost is £155 per person. The Prices include a copy of the phase one Signalong manual.

POPAT

This one day intensive course will train practitioners to use the programme of phoneme awareness training (POPAT). Research has found phonological awareness to be a necessary skill to support the development of both speech and literacy skills. POPAT is aimed at developing the ability to segment and process the sounds within words, working only with sounds and sound pictures before attaching letters to the sounds at a later stage. By developing the ability to identify, segment and sequence the sounds within words, many children have an improved ability to store words more accurately leading to more secure foundations for speech and literacy development. The cost is £120 per person and includes registration with POPAT and a resource pack.

The Impact of Speech, Language and Communication Difficulties in the Classroom

This training session is aimed at developing a greater understanding of the role of language on education. It will explore the impact of language difficulties on a child’s development over time and how this affects their ability to access education. It will also provide a brief introduction to general strategies that can support SLCN in the classroom.

Cost: free

Supporting Comprehension in the Classroom

This training session looks specifically at comprehension in the classroom. It will cover the experience of children with comprehension difficulties, summarise typical developmental milestones, and consider the role of non-verbal communication in supporting understanding. It will also provide general strategies to facilitate understanding in the classroom and highlight key resources to help best support children’s comprehension.