Family Information Service

Early Identification and Intervention to Better Support Children and Young People’s Therapy Needs

Last updated: 31 August 2023
Integrated Therapies Strategy

6. Our policy

This section covers what we plan to do and why we are taking this approach.

What we are doing and why

Therapy support is available at 3 different levels:

Best practice guidance suggests developing and using expertise within the child’s local environment, rather than referring every child to a specialist.

Time spent working this way means specialist time can be used to support children and young people with the most complex needs which cannot be met any other way

Community-based groups have an important role to play in promoting positive speech and language development. They can help children develop essential daily physical skills like:

  • playing
  • looking after themselves
  • sensory skills

During the Covid-19 lockdowns, there were fewer opportunities for parents to access peer-led or community-led support and we’re now seeing an increase in children requiring support as a result.

Buckinghamshire is using this information to:

  • move towards a better balance of support across universal, targeted and specialist levels
  • embed a whole school approach to the delivery of therapy support
  • promote peer and community support and their role in supporting child development

This will help:

  • children receive support at the earliest opportunity
  • reduce the increasing demand for support in Buckinghamshire
  • improve outcomes for children and young people

How it works

By working in this way, access to more intensive levels of support would remain where needs would not be met by universal or targeted support. This will also reduce the impact the national shortage of therapists is having on Buckinghamshire’s children.

A similar approach to supporting children’s therapy needs called “the Balanced System" has been working well in other areas.

Data

Based on 2021 population estimates and national prevalence data, for speech and language therapy, we could expect the demand for the varying levels of provision to be as follows:

Description 0 to 4 years 5 to 9 years 10 to 19 years 0 to 19 years

Children with persistent SLCN 10% of all children

3172 3773 6800 13744

Subgroups of the 10%

0 to 4 years

5 to 9 years

10 to 19 years

0 to 19 years

Children with DLD 7.6% of children

241 287 517 1045

Children with language disorder associated with another biomedical condition such as autism 2.3% of children

73 87 156 316

Children with complex language disorder 1% of all children

32 38 68 137

These children and young people will need universal and targeted support and may need specialist support at different times as they grow and develop.

There are approximately 1,969 children receiving occupational therapy support within Buckinghamshire. This includes both specialist and higher-level targeted support.

There are approximately 880 children receiving physiotherapy support in Buckinghamshire from the Children’s Integrated Therapy Service