Speech and Language Therapists offer support to children who may need help with:

• Understanding what is being said to them
• Understanding their environment
• Listening / following instructions
• Using words
• Joining words together in sentences
• Saying sounds and speaking clearly
• Eating, drinking and swallowing
• Communicating and interacting with other people
• Stammering
• Selective Mutism (fear of talking in certain situations)
• Voice difficulties / quality of voice
• Social, Emotional and Mental Health

The Speech and Language Therapy Service is broadly divided into the following areas:

Early Years Team (0-18 months) focussing on providing early support and advice to parents and people who work with young children.
Provides early support and advice to parents and people who work with young children.

Community Clinic Team:

Pre-School children (18 months to Reception age) with:

• Language difficulties
• Social communication differences
• Developmental differences
• Selective mutism (fear of talking in certain situations)

3-16 years old who require with support with:

• Speech sounds
• Stammering
• Voice

Mainstreams Schools Team:

• Working with children and young people in primary and secondary schools and supporting school staff to help them.
• The team also provide school funded speech and language therapy contracts. This may include assessments, intervention and training.

Additional Needs Team:

Working with children and young people with:

• Special educational needs within the community, if the child is pre-school aged
• Special educational needs within Specialist Support Schools
• Eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties

Our Speech and Language Therapists and Language Development Workers (Speech and Language Therapy Assistants) will work closely with parents and those closest to the child/young person to:

• Understand their concerns and the impact their needs have on their everyday life
• Offer advice, support and training to parents, health staff, and education staff on how best to support the child/young person’s needs
• Signpost to the most appropriate support available in the local area

We may also work directly with the child/young person to support them to improve their skills and develop different strategies in order to communicate in the best way they can. We aim to reduce the impact of the child/young person’s difficulties on their life.

During the initial discussion with a therapist, we may discover that the support and skills to meet the child/young person’s needs are already in place and therefore no further input is needed at this time.

We work in a variety of settings to best meet the needs of the child/ young person. This may include:

• Video and telephone appointments
• Clinics
• Nurseries
• Schools
• Family homes
• Children’s Centres

• Children being referred MUST be registered with a GP in the Manchester area or attend a Manchester school.
• Any professional, or parent/carer, who has a concern about a child’s speech, language and communication, or concerns about eating, drinking and swallowing can make a request for help/referral.
• Parental consent must be discussed and given by the parent/carer before the request for help/referral is submitted.
• We require details of the child/young person speech, language and communication needs, or eating, drinking and swallowing needs.
• If the child attends a nursery or school, you must provide the name of the setting as we need this information to process the referral.
• If insufficient information is provided, the referral will be rejected.
• If you have read the information above, please click the link and complete the referral form: Children’s Community Referral Form: download here.
• The referral form can be returned to us via post or emailed to salt.admin@mft.nhs.uk.
• If you need help completing the form, please call 0161 470 6770.

Contact information

Advice Leaflets

Please follow the link to access our advice leaflets for support with different areas of speech, language and communication.

• Speech and Language Therapy Advice Leaflets (Padlet)

Resources & Signposting

• Speech and Language Therapy Resources & Signposting (Padlet)

Feedback

Please let us know what you think of our resources by completing this short Survey Monkey. We’re always looking to make improvements, so if you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear about them from you.

• Speech & Language Therapy Feedback (Surveymonkey)

Useful links

• BBC Tiny Happy People: www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people Ideas and activities to help you develop your child’s communication skills through simple interaction and play.
• Afasic: www.afasic.org.uk Raises awareness of speech, language and communication needs(SLCN) and  campaigns for better services and provision for children and young people with SLCN
• ICAN: www.ican.org.uk works to support the development of speech ,language and communication skills in children needing extra support
• The Literacy Trust:  www.literacytrust.org.uk An independent charity that transforms lives through language and literacy
• Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists: www.rcslt.org The professional body for Speech and Language Therapists
• Manchester Local Offer (Disability & Special Needs): manchestergov/SEND   The Manchester Local Offer brings together information in one place. It helps children and young people with SEND up to the age of 25 and their parents understand what services and support they can expect locally. This includes their statutory entitlements which are required by law.

Speech and Language Therapy Online Workshops 

This section provides information on our Speech and Language Therapy online workshops. These have been created to help parents and carers across Manchester learn how to support their child’s social communication needs.

There are three workshops in total to complete and the goals of these are to:

• Provide you with new strategies to support your child’s early interaction and communication skills.
• Provide you with new information so you know why we are asking you to try the strategies.
• Providing you with ideas on how to implement the strategies in your child’s daily life in order to help their communication skills.

It is recommended to watch one workshop per month and then follow the advice at home.

To view a workshop, please select from the page links below.

Workshop 1 – Getting the Interaction Started

Workshop 2 – Supporting Understanding 

Workshop 3 – Creating Communication Opportunities

Social Communication and Interaction Skills Toolkit

We are currently in the process of creating a social communication and interaction skills toolkit to also use at home. When this is available, we will share this to webpage.

Feedback

Please let us know what you think of our online workshops by completing this short Survey Monkey. We’re always looking to make improvements, so if you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear about them from you.

The MLCO Children and Young People’s Speech and Language Therapy Service have put together a series of videos intended to help parents and carers support young people (aged 11-18) with communication needs.

You can view the full series, here: www.manchesterlco.org/salt-parent-carer-11-18/