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