North East Lincolnshire Specialist Pre-School PORTAGE Home-teaching Service

Portage Service

The Portage Service is a home - teaching service for pre-school children with special needs. These needs may be:

• Cognitive and learning difficulties
• Behaviour, emotional and social development difficulties
• Communication and interaction difficulties
• Sensory and/or physical impairment

The support provided is based on the principle that parent/carers are responsible for the care and development of their own child and that they bring considerable experience to the partnership with professionals.

The AIM is to work in partnership with parent/carers to support the development of young children's play, using the Portage Checklist, which encompasses the following skill areas:

• Infant stimulation
• Socialisation
• Self-help
• Cognitive
• Motor
• language

The Service operates part-time, term time only and comprises of a Portage Supervisor, Home visitors and administrative support. All the staff have additional training in Portage methods and have a wealth of experience working with families and children. All the children are supported in their own homes. The home visitors work alongside parents/carers and offer a carefully structured but flexible system to help parents/carers become effective teachers of their own children. A Portage checklist, together with written activity charts, provides ongoing assessment of a child's progress. The staff also work in close liaison with other multi-disciplinary teams and are supported by a management team with members representing parents and all relevant professions.

Portage operates an open referral system. Anyone, who has a concern about a child's development, can with parental permission refer to the Portage Service. On receipt of the referral the Portage supervisor will arrange to make an initial home visit to discuss the service and determine if it would be appropriate for the child. If found to be appropriate subsequent visits are arranged with the parent/carer. These are usually weekly or fortnightly.

The Service is funded from the central budget and as such works on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council. Further additional funding has been made available through local Sure Start initiatives to provide additional support in designated areas.

A referral form and an information leaflet  for the Portage Service is available by clicking here:  Portage Referral Form (pdf) (125 KB)  and Portage Information Leaflet (pdf) (138 KB)

If you would like a full colour copy of the information leaflet you can call into one of the Customer Access Points or telephone the number below.

(In order to read pdf files you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. This is a free download from the internet and can be accessed from our  Downloads page) 

Contact Details
Mrs Maggie Smith
Portage Supervisor
Directorate of Children's Services
Springfield Centre
Springwood Crescent
Grimsby
DN33 3HG
Tel. 01472 323177/8
Fax. 01472 323190

Or email our Portage Service