Portage?

[milge]

Hi,i've seen a few mentions on here about Portage and have just found the website for it, but am still a little confused. My wonderful GP has never heard of it, so no surprise that it has never been offered to us, even though we live within 12 miles of two portage centres. My two year old dd has an 18 month GDD and is currently being tested for autism, so from what i undertstand, should be an ideal candidate for portage. Does anyone have any experience they can share with me? many thanks in advance

My dd has Down Syndrome, so was put on the waiting list for portage at birth, was assessed at about 4 months, mainly a formality for us, and started receiving regular (weekly) home visits from about 8 months.
I have heard that services vary tremendously depending on where you are.
I know after dd initial visit, her details had to go before a Pre-school Intervention Panel (PIP) to prioritise cases, I suppose.

As I understand it you can refer yourself to portage (at least in our area) so it might be worth a phone call directly to them in the first instance.

Milge - definitely worth finding out if you can self refer for portage in your area. I did for dd as neither her GP nor Paed would refer her for ANY support until she had seen the Community Development team (appnt waiting time 5 months). I contacted Portage and a lovely lady came out within a week or so and not only put dd on the waiting list for portage (took about 3 months) but also referred us to physio/OT/SALT and Vision so we didn't have to wait so long for those services either. Not sure if portage can do that in every area though.

I have posted on here before that our particular Portage Worker wasn't great (she was new and didn't have much more of a clue than me) but some are excellent and can be a real lifeline. I think most of them will come and visit you once a week and encourage development through play, others are also physios, or organise support groups... all sorts of things.

Definitely definitely call them yourself and find out what you need to do to get on the service. It can only help.

I set up Portage myself when Lottie was a couple of months old.

thanks ladies, tracked down the portage centre that covers my area, and after 20 mins on the phone to the dept secretary, adamant that referrals only come from paeds consultants, is going to get the co ordinator to ring me tomorrow.

Do you have a Paed who could refer? More of a pain though. I think portage operates very differently in diff areas e.g some are voluntary, some not, so it makes sense that referral processes are different. Ridiculous though .

Good news! the woman phoned back and put dd on the waiting list - there are only 3 othe kids in front of her, so hopefully she'll get seen by about 6 months! Spoke to dd's physio, who is going to send her referral in tomrrow, rather than wait for our next paeds appt in 8 weeks. Hurrah!

Milge - that's great news!