Baby Week is always an exciting time for us. Aside from meeting new parents and carers (as well as old friends!), we also get to speak with services that support young children and their families.

At this year’s Baby Week launch earlier this month, we spoke with the Early Years Communication and Language Team, who expressed interest in meeting parents and carers at future MPCF events so they can get feedback about the service.

Part of Manchester Local Care Organisation’s Community Speech and Language Therapy service, the EYCLT is a team of Speech and Language Therapists and Language Development Workers who specialise in supporting the communication and language development of children in the Early Years (age 0-5). They provide targeted services to support children before they require specialist speech and language therapy intervention. They aim to identify children’s language levels and create supportive early language environments in order to increase school readiness and decrease the risk of poor outcomes later in life5

This team runs the ECHO (Early Communication Home-learning Offer) pathway for children who may be showing signs of a social communication difficulties. The programme consists a family-centered communication support package delivered through face-to-face home visits, including an initial visit and 5 intervention sessions.

  • Session 1: Tuning In
  • Session 2: Copying
  • Session 3: Behaviour as Communication
  • Session 4: Objects and Gestures
  • Session 5: Pausing and Choices

You can read the Early Years Communication and Language Pathway report from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) for more information.

Meet the Team / Get Involved

The Early Years Communication and Language Team will be joining us at our October 11 coffee morning to explain their new Early Years communication offer and get parent/carer views on what their team is doing. They are also interested in hearing about what support/advice parents wish we’ve had when our children were under 2 years old.

Please follow the link above to book your place at the coffee morning.

If you can’t join us on the day but would like to send over a question/comment for their team, please contact us and we’ll mention them at the session.