East Sussex County Council purchases Little Link for all its Early Years Settings

We are delighted to announce that East Sussex County Council Children’s Services has purchased our new Little Link communication and language package for its 352 school-based nurseries, PVI settings (private, voluntary and independent settings) and childminders.

They have decided to use some of their core SEND and Alternative Provision Change Programme funding to fund a sustainable model of ELSEC in East Sussex (Early Language Support for Every Child), which will be supported through their SEND Early Years Service.

Our partnership with East Sussex has been running for two decades, and now nearly all schools subscribe to Speech & Language Link for 4-14 years. We already work closely with the Communication, Language and Autism Support Service and the local NHS speech and language therapy team.

Iona Wooderson, Senior Manager for Targeted Support Services in the East Sussex County Council Education Division, says:

“We were looking for a sustainable and cost-effective package to identify and support children at risk of SLCN. We recognise the importance of developing strong language skills at an early age and how skilled our Early Years settings all are at doing this. We want to build on the strong practice which is already in place and further encourage universal language screening and targeted intervention in all East Sussex Early Years settings. We also feel that, as Early Years practitioners see the children the most, they are in the best position to be able to create a language rich environment and develop those skills in the children they support. We are looking forward to continuing to work with Speech & Language Link.”

Pete McLeod, Director at Speech & Language Link, says:

“We are honoured that East Sussex County Council has now extended our ongoing partnership to support their Early Years settings in identifying and supporting children with language and communication difficulties, and we thank them for buying a 1-year subscription to Little Link for every Early Years setting in the county, including Childminders. This mutual relationship is the best example of how we can support specialist teams, freeing up the Early Years team and speech and language therapists to focus on specialist intervention for those with the greatest need.”

Little Link is a communication and language package designed by speech and language therapists to help Early Years providers deliver the best possible speech, communication, and language development for preschool children. It includes:

• Story-based, child-friendly screening tools to identify children needing extra support.
• Universal language enrichment programmes so every child benefits.
• A comprehensive toolkit with planned activities, six beautifully illustrated storybooks, and practitioner resources to create language-rich environments.
•  Sessions are inclusive, play-based, and designed to build strong foundations for speech and phonics readiness by school entry

For more information, please contact Judith McMillan at helpdesk@speechlink.co.uk or sendeys@eastsussex.gov.uk.