Elklan courses provide those attending with the tools to develop the communications skills of children and young people, specifically those experiencing speech, language and communications difficulties. There is a variety of courses covering different age ranges and specialist areas.

The courses for professionals (eg early years practitioners, teachers, teaching assistants, support workers or youth justice workers) include, but are not limited to:

• Speech and Language Support for Under-5s
• Speech and Language Support for 5–11s
• Speech and Language Support for 11–16s
• Speech and Language Support for Vulnerable Young People
• Communication Support for 0–25s with Complex Needs

The courses are accredited by the Open College Network – and a formal qualification can be awarded on the successful completion of a portfolio.

In addition to delivering the Elklan courses, we can mentor early years settings and primary, secondary and specialist schools through the Communication Friendly Settings (CFS) accreditation – this demonstrates a commitment to staff training and the embedding of communication and language development within a communications policy.

There is also a range of courses for parents/guardians, providing practical advice and strategies for use in the home and social environments. These include:

• Let’s Talk with Under-5s
• Let’s Talk with 5–9s
• Let’s Talk with Special Children (for children with severe and complex learning needs)
• Let’s Talk Together (for children with social communications needs, including ASD)

Courses can be commissioned by individual education settings/organisations or a collective group. We also host our own courses onto which individuals can book.

The Talk Boost programmes, developed by the children’s charity ICAN, are targeted interventions which support language-delayed children to make significant progress with their language and communications skills.

The children who would benefit from these programmes may have:

• difficulty listening/paying attention
• poor vocabulary
• difficulty understanding language
• difficulty organising and using language
• immature sentences
• difficulties explaining or describing events, information and instructions
• difficulties socialising/interacting with their peers

There are three programmes:

• Early Talk Boost (3- to 4-year-olds)
• Talk Boost KS1 (4- to 7-year-olds)
• Talk Boost KS2 (7- to 10-year-olds)

The programmes are delivered by early years practitioners, teachers or teaching assistants to small groups of children, through several weekly sessions, across a period of 8–10 weeks.

We offer the training required to implement the programmes. Those attending will gain an understanding of the rationale behind the model and develop the skills to identify appropriate children, deliver the intervention successfully and monitor progress.

Courses can be commissioned by individual education settings/organisations or a collective group. We also host our own courses onto which individuals can book.

We offer training on a range of topics across each of our disciplines. Training can be tailored to specific audiences (eg professionals or parents/guardians) and varied in duration (eg full day, half day or twilight).

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• sensory processing disorder
• feeding difficulties
• toileting
• challenging behaviour
• non-verbal communication
• strategies to boost communication

We do not currently have any of our own training events planned. Please check back regularly or follow us on Facebook.

We provide a programme of training events in the Liverpool area on behalf of the Isabella Trust. Please visit their website for details and bookings.