What is portage?
Portage provides home-based, early intervention and support. It has three main elements:
- Child-led play, enabling children to initiate play.
- Family focus, giving families the opportunity to talk about their caring experiences.
- Structured teaching, planning activity and play around everyday situations that families and children can practice together.
Who can get portage?
Portage is available to you if you have a young child with additional needs, including with a
learning disability
A learning disability is to do with the way someone's brain works. It makes it harder for someone to learn, understand or do things.
.
It is traditionally available to
certain
Certain means you are sure about something.
disabled children until the age of five.
What happens when you get portage
If you are eligible for portage, here's what will happen:
- A portage worker will visit you and together you'll identify and agree new skills that you want your child to develop. This usually happens on a weekly basis.
- The portage worker will then create a plan of techniques and what needs to happen to teach your child these skills.
- You'll then follow the plan, practice the techniques at home and the portage worker will track your progress each visit.
How to get portage
Most portage services have criteria to determine who is eligible to receive them. These criteria will vary from area to area.
Not every local area has a portage service. To see if you have portage services in your area, visit the National Portage Association website which has details of all registered portage services and who to contact.
You can also view your
council
A council is also called a
local authority
A local authority is also called a council. They are a group of people who make decisions about some of the things in the area where you live like schools,
social care
Social care means the services that give care and support to people who need it.
(support for people), parks and dustbin collection.
. They are a group of people who make decisions about some of the things in the area where you live. These include: schools, social care (support for people), parks and dustbin collection.
's Local Offer of support, which should have details of a portage service if there is one in your local area.
Meet Harry
Watch Harry play whilst his portage worker observes and supports his development.
How to get the support you need
Contact the Learning Disability Helpline, our advice and support line, for
guidance
Guidance means being given clear instructions to be able to do something well.
and information about what support we can offer you.
Or why not take a look at the online
community
A community is the people and places in an area.
? This is a place for parents and family carers of people with a learning disabilityto share experiences, advice and support.
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education
Education is when you learn things. When you fill in a form to get a job, education means you write where you went to school, college or university.