Every education setting, health setting, social worker and community support worker will:

• Have a supportive ethos and environment which promotes speech, language, communication and respect, and values diversity
• Have clear processes in place to:
  • capture each child and young person’s voice
  • respond to concerns raised by parents/carers/children and young people/professionals
  • share appropriate information with partners as part of a multi-disciplinary team approach (e.g., Early Help Assessment partnership enquiries)
• Have a lead professional for communication (e.g. Communication Champion) and ensure that they have access to appropriate training to enhance their competency levels
• Have systems in place to ensure that all relevant members of staff have a clear understanding of needs of all children and young people including the adaptations required for groups/individuals (e.g., Child Protection Online Management System, provision maps, pupil profiles)
• Have systems in place to review whether an environment is ‘communication friendly’ and make reasonable adjustments as necessary
• Make consistent use of visuals to:
  • enable access
  • support understanding
  • support independence
  • reinforce key routines and expectations
  • enable a child/young person to access and contribute to their learning
  • enable an individual to express themselves
• Have processes in place to enable parents/carers and staff to understand typical speech, language and communication development
• Have access to recommended screening tools to enable professionals to identify need and plan provision
• Have systems to implement a whole school/setting/workplace approach
• Provide opportunities for all workforces to audit the key skills and knowledge needed to support the speech, language and communication development of all children and young people
• Provide training for all staff to develop understanding and confidence around supporting speech, language and communication needs that is relevant to their role
• Support parents/carers and professionals by signposting to resources and sources of information

For information and resources to support the implementation of these please see appendix 1.

View and/or download the full Speech, Language and Communication Needs Toolkit