Children with Additional Needs
Portage and Early Support
Portage and Early Support is an education service for pre-school children with additional needs, run by the Children's Services Department.
Barking and Dagenham Portage and Early Support works with very young children who have additional needs and their families. Ideally we like to start working with a family as soon after the baby's birth as possible.
The whole emphasis of Portage and Early Support is on the early years and we work with the child's parent in the home to develop skills in all the main developmental areas.
Portage and Early Support is based on weekly visits to the child's home by a trained Portage and Early Support worker. The Portage and Early Support worker works closely with the child's parent to establish the skills the child already has and then, together, decide on what skills the child needs to go on to learn next.
Each visit will last about an hour. The parent and the Portage and Early Support worker discuss learning activities that will help the child begin to learn new skills. The parent and the Portage and Early Support home visitor will decide what the child can be expected to learn during the following week.
Tasks that may be difficult or take a long time to learn, like learning to talk or getting dressed, are broken down into small steps, which can be practiced each day.
The Service also works very closely with other services involved with the child, for example, physiotherapy, speech therapy, educational psychology and pre-schools.
Eligibility for referral
- The child lives in the borough
- The child age must be from birth to 3
- The child must not be in full-time daycare; and
- The child has significant delay in 2 or more areas of development or have a medical diagnosis that indicates the likelihood of developmental delay
More about Portage and Early Support|
Local information and support groups 
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For young children with additional needs and their families.
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