18th November 2020

• Were you told to just “wait and see” when you first raised concerns about your child’s development? We are working on a project to improve early diagnosis and support for children with neurodevelopmental conditions.

  Over the next ten months, we will be working together with Sheffield City Council and Sheffield Clinical Commissioning group to develop and deliver training for staff who work with children aged 0 to 5 years, such as nursery workers, childminders, health visitors, therapists and GPs.

  The training will raise awareness of the early signs of neurodevelopmental conditions, like autism, ADHD and learning disabilities. It will help staff feel more confident about discussing any concerns with parents, enable them to make timely referrals to diagnostic services, and improve their knowledge of support services that they can signpost families to.

  Parents’ experiences will be at the heart of the project. We have just run two focus groups to collect feedback from parents, and parents and professionals will now work in partnership to develop the content of the training. They will also deliver it together; due to Covid restrictions, this is likely to be online in the first instance. In the long term, the aim is that the training will be embedded into the council’s standard training programme for early years professionals.

  

  Meet our new project worker Amy Farry! Amy will coordinate the development and delivery of the training and support the parents taking part. You can contact her by emailing amy.farry@shefffieldparentcarerforum.org.uk.