The Early Support Pilot Programme (ESPP) aims to improve the quality and consistency of services available at local level, promote early identification of disability and ensure that families get the right support at the right time.
John Ford, who has been seconded from the Department for Education and Skills to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People to co-ordinate the programme, said, 'It is going extremely well. We have 21 projects underway and a further seven in the pipeline. There is a great deal of enthusiasm among professionals to deliver good, seamless services, with early detection of disabilities as the key to ensuring that the delivery of services is effective.'
The ESPP, being developed by the DfES in partnership with the National Children's Bureau and the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, was the outcome of a multi-agency working party looking into the needs of children with disabilities from birth to two, set up by the DfES and the Department of Health.
The programme is based on two sets of guidance published by the DfES and the DoH earlier this year and is linked to the DoH's Newborn Hearing Screening Programme, which will be rolled out nationally in 2005-06.
According to its recently-launched website, www.deafnessatbirth.org.uk/pilot/index.html, the ESPP aims to explore how education services, working in partnership with other agencies, can translate some of the principles set out in the guidance into effective practice, and to decide how best to promote partnership between parents and professionals in planning the delivery of services.
The programme for disabled children under two includes the following national initiatives:
* The charity Sense is developing multi-agency and service provision for families with multi-sensory impaired children.
* The National Deaf Children's Society is working with agencies across England to develop better information materials for families of deaf children.
* A standard monitoring protocol to track the very early stages of deafness. The protocol, co-ordinated by Sue Lewis of the Ewing Foundation, will serve as a prototype for helping children with other disabilities.
Local initiatives range from assistance for ethnic minority families with disabled children run by the Berkshire Sensory Consortium, to a project run in partnership with Bristol Local Education Authority Early Years and Childcare Service which is developing a database of children with disabilities.