Speech and Language Therapy service offer

The Children’s Speech and Language Therapy team supports children and families across Cumbria - from universal resources and targeted advice to tailored individual interventions - delivered at home, nursery, school, children’s centres, or clinic settings.

This page hopes to answer the commonly asked questions about our service offer. If you can’t find the information you are looking for us please contact us.

Who we are

Children’s Speech and Language Therapy is part of the Children’s Specialist Services Team. We are county-wide service and support children and their families across all of Cumbria.

We have four sub-teams. For more information about the locations these team cover please visit Team Contact Details. We support children in the location most appropriate to them. This can include:

  • their home
  • their nursery or school
  • in their local Children’s Centre
  • in our clinic spaces in Health Centres, Children Development Centres, or Hospitals

All of our teams have Speech and Language Therapists and Speech and Language Therapy Assistants. Our Speech and Language Therapists are responsible for the care and assessment of children’s speech, language and communication. Our Speech and Language Therapy Assistants support the Therapists to deliver individualised support to the children and their important adults.

To find the Therapist or Assistant who might be supporting you visit our Team Profile Page (coming soon).

How our services work

Our service is available to all the children in Cumbria. To deliver the support that is most appropriate for the child and their speech, language and communication we work at three different levels. Support is available via any or all of these levels based on what the child needs at that time. These levels are:

Universal

Our universal support is available to everyone.

This level includes all of the information on our Information for Families and our Facebook page.

Targeted

Our Targeted level of support is available for children with, or a risk of, a Speech, Language and Communication Need. Support is available to important adults around the child so they feel confident supporting the child’s communication.

This level includes:

  • Advice Service
  • online advice and support session offer.
  • Speech, Language and Communication screening tools
  • Speech, Language and Communication resource pack [PDF 1.5MB]
  • training offer
  • groups available in local Children’s Centres

We have a dedicated team of Speech and Language Therapists who are responsible for the development of our Universal and Targeted offer.

Individualised

Our Individualised level of support is for children whose speech, language and communication needs are currently impacting their life. To access this level of support a Request for support must be made. To check if a Request for Support is appropriate please refer to our Information for families and Information for professionals web pages.

Speech and Language Therapists are considered the experts in communication, but parents and carers are the expert on their child. We always strive to work in a collaborative way and set goals for important and meaningful for the child and their family.

Others we work with

We will work with the child and any important adult to them. This can include, but is not limited to:

  • parents and carers
  • extended family
  • nursery practitioners
  • class teachers, teaching assistants and SENCos
  • Early Years advisors
  • Specialist Advisory Teachers
  • any other relevant professional supporting your child