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The Nest, based at Canterburys Nurseries, was set up by Sophie Hutton, an early years and autism specialist speech and language therapist, who felt busy mainstream settings were the not the right environment for some children with additional needs.
Many families who had been through challenging times coming to terms with their child’s complex needs and desperately needed a setting that would support, educate and love their family as a whole, flocked to the new setting when it opened.
The Nest now cares for up to 12 children per day and has five full-time members of staff including a speech and language therapist, early years SENDCO and fully qualified teacher.
Each highly structured day includes a one-to-one speech and language therapy session and two small group speech and language therapy sessions. The therapy is based on in-depth assessment and the child’s interests. Children also access a wide range of exciting activities and provocations set up to enhance their educational experience.
As many children come to the Nest after attending settings where their needs cannot be met, and others have never been in a setting before due to the complex nature of their needs, families have often experienced significant trauma and can be untrusting and guarded initially. Many children are non-verbal and have not had access to any kind of communication support before joining the setting.
This means the whole family requires support. A thorough speech and language therapy assessment is therefore carried out straight away with the child, their family and any previous setting. A report and therapy programme is then devised and modelled to the family.
Staff at the Nest lead on EHCP applications and ensure all children are placed in schools that are right for their needs. Some children remain at the setting for an additional year until the right education placement can be found.
Each member of staff at the Nest is put onto a competency framework for training in their first two years which covers every aspect of early years education and speech and language therapy to ensure they maintain the standards set within the setting. Once completed, they also achieve speech and language therapy assistant status which enables them to complete certain assessments and interventions at a more specialist level.
Staff work with a range of professionals, the NHS and the local authority to ensure children and their families have access to everything they need. An Autism specialist barber comes in to the nursery to cut the children’s hair, and children also access weekly swimming lessons.
Where a service, such as sensory integration therapy, is unavailable, the setting buys it in.
The Nest is also now branching out to support children in mainstream settings and help new nursery practitioners or SENDCOs understand the graduated response, different types of assessments and interventions for different children, and how to have difficult conversations.
FINALIST
Open University
CRITERION
Open to settings, services or projects that promote equality of opportunity and the best outcomes for all children, families and staff regardless of ethnic origin, special needs, background or disadvantage.