Success portage stories and outcomes please :)

[leaharrison11]

My DS is starting portage next week signed all paper work today i was wondering if anyone had any success stories or advice for me !

Do you have other children that will be present if so my advice is buy some special toys that only come out during postage visit it distract them plus dc3 is very social and got very upset at not being able to play with all the nice toys the postage worker fetched.

We had a fantastic portage worker!

DD loved her, as she had some v. Cool toys, and each session she had some new fun game we could play to help DD develop

Go into it with an open mind, but in my experience a good portage worker is the most useful specialist you'll come across (and we have a lot of specialists!)

Crawling- hi no its just my DS he is my first !

Proudmum74- hi i have met our worker and she seems lovely amd easy to communicate with my DS hasnt taken a liking to her yet but he is like that takes him a while !

What was the outcomes of your portage sessions where they successful for you both ? If you dont mind me asking.

We had a lovely portage worker. As others have said dd loved someone turning up wit h special toys and lots of attention each week. It can feel a bit daunting when you have to continue what they are showing you over the week. She really helped him with concentration and fine motor skills. Great thing is it is individually tailored and will change as child progresses. And you get plenty of encouragement too. Good luck

ds, dh and I all loved our portage worker to bits, , back then she was the best professional we had by a long way. made such a huge difference, (just at the point ds went to school and his portage had finished LA here cut funding and provision was halved.. I was quite willing to 'man the baracades', / chain myself to a councellor, etc I felt so strongly about how much we had benefited. )

I think they were very successful. She used to write her IEPs, and we'd then focus on those skills for the rest of the week.

Dd had portage from 6 mths old to 13 months (we were switched to EYI team when she started nursery part-time)

Our exercises were focused mainly on fine & gross motor skills (DD has Down's & hypermobility), so the games focused on building muscle tone & hand coordination

Im so glad its all positive stories :) and all your DC have enjoyed it ! Im just curious what happens after portage see there is a worry he may be on the autism septum and will portage be able to help with a future diagnosis or is it just for motor skills?

yes they can help support you while you wait for dx of autism, not just with the motor skills they do pretty much everything!
portage has been brilliant for my ds, the main benefit we had from them i would say is they gave him a massive support in establishing signing - which has given him a way of communicating and made him understand the benefit of communicating. coming from a stage where he would not know how to indicate if hes hungry, thirsty or anything and only had very few sounds he now signs amazingly and his speech has come on quite well too - still has a very long way to go on that but can definitely see progress, and signing has given us a way to almost unlock what is in his brain, as he atleast has some method of communication and before he had none!!
i also feel like mine have helped me a lot, not just ds but they have supported us as a family going through the assessment process. when they first started coming he did not have a dx was still waiting, and now he has it - it was quite a long wait and u tend to feel a bit alone and no support while on the list for months and months but atleast every week or two i would get portage coming to see how he was getting on and doing activities with him and trying to support his development, and giving advice about whatever else i need to do getting him seen by various people. also gave support in getting him started in nursery, gave me support with applying for dla and will be helping me get his statement sorted now ready for school. atleast having someone to help out with that stuff makes life easier cos otherwise its easy to feel lost with all of it!
the other thing is they can sign post u to groups either for asd specific if thats looking most likely the dx he will get, or for sn in general
all the portage people we have come across seem to be lovely, i hope you get a lot of benefit from the service. i always recommend portage to people if they are in similar situation to me! will be quite sad to not be with them anymore now as once they have helped with the statement and now ds is started in education they said they will back off a bit as they normally support them only until they start in education

Hi Lea

I agree with others. Portage is one of the best professional service you will get. The sucess depends on how intensively you do the activities with your child. They will only come 3-4 times a month.

However, even though they are the best, they still arent good enough for children with anything more serious than a small learning difficulty.

Take what you can get would be my advice.

Good luck