Nursery didn't refer my son to portage

[Semelito]

Hi all,

Last October my son's nursery suggested that they refer him to portage as he was not, and still isn't, hitting certain development milestones on time. They did so presumably in February 2023 and told us that the waiting list is long but we'd hear from them. The month is July and we still haven't heard anything. Meanwhile, our son is not making any progress on baseline skills for his age. I get in touch with the local portage service today ( nursery told us that we can't do anything but wait once they've sent the referral, but I found out that this is not the case) and they tell me that they never received a referral from for my son. My son just turned 3 and can't access this service anymore. I am hopping mad. Any advice on how to deal with this? Valuable time was lost. We'd already started him at another nursery last month because we were not happy with other aspects too. Many thanks in advance.

If your son isn't hitting his milestone you need to see a Doctor. Portage is usually after they know the child's delayed.

Thanks sadless. We were on comm paeds waiting list since February, they saw him last week and their initial assessment was that developmentally he's a year behind. They referred him to speech therapy but there is long waiting list for that too. New nursery said they could help with that. I'm just angry that the old nursery never actually sent the referral and asking advice about that.

I would go back and ask the Nursery to double check that it was sent. The error may not be at their end. They maybe able to prove they sent it and the error is with the other end.

In my experience these services are enormously inefficient and massively underfunded. Referrals get passed from pillar to post. It's entirely possible that a portage referral was made from nursery that never made it to the local team. Nursery would have no reason not to make the referral, it could lead to support on their side as well as on yours. I'm sorry that this has happened though.

This was my first thought.
But - if you've already left the Nursery, then 'following it up' with them isn't where I'd be using my time and energy. I'd use that for supporting my ds.

Portage is normally for children not in a setting each setting should have its own SENCO team and access to support from their LA. Did your HV raise concerns at the two year review?

Annoying yes, but could be an error on either end.

We also missed out on portage due to age but tbh he gained from other help so I would focus on what can be put in place now for him.