Could anyone with experience of portage explain it to me?

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Thanks in advance. This was briefly mentioned by DS's consultant but not explained and we have now received an appointment for a home visit.

Firstly, its brill!

Its an opportunity for your child to develope using play. A trained portage worker will arrive with toys and try and engage your child in a fun and interactive way.

An assesment is done on the first visit, then (IIRC) the assesment is taken back to 'the panel' where they decide wether or not your child would benefit from the service. If the panel approves (takes a couple of weeks) then the worker will come back and do further assesments to see where your child needs help (in what areas of developement) and tailor future work in those areas. children love the 'work' and the workers - ours (Jane) is fabby, and lovely!

It usually follows: Initial visit, secondary visit, assessment for need (of the service), assessment of developement, fortnightly/monthly visits. But be warned, they only work during termtime! but they will see your child until full time school (after foundation) and will organise anything that needs to be in place at foundation/school ie. teacher training, visual timetables, integration into school/nursery, etc.

Incidentally in a lot of areas its known as 'inclusion' and offered by 'the early years team'. HTH xxx

My son only had Portage visits until he began his placement (10 hours per week) at a SEN preschool. I think it's a fantastic idea, but in our case it didn't work quite out as well as it could. Our lovely Portage visitor just didn't seem to "get" the idea of autism or small boys and as a result he didn't really take to her. (He needs people to be quite confident and forceful with him, and she wasn't terribly energetic.) However, I enjoyed sitting and chatting to her about him for an hour once a week and she came up with some great strategies for working with him so it wasn't all bad!

In my experience the idea is that the portage worker identifies skills for you to work on (daily) with your DC during the week, and then they come back, see how you got on, offer suggestions, spend time playing with the child and come up with more ideas.

It sounds brilliant. We have our initial visit next week but have just received the newsletter from them. It seems very much like a group of mums working together (most of it) they do fundraising, twice weekly coffee mornings and big christmas parties and fetes etc. Oh and mums only parties, with wine, lol. They also have a huge new centre with play and sensory rooms etc. I'm quite surprised at how well set up they seem, but new to this so don't know if that's usual?

I was hoping to hear praise of it here, I really hope it's as good in our area. It will be nice to have imput from people other than suly paeds and health visitors.

Portage is offered in six-week blocks in our area, with a drop-in session every Monday for families between blocks or on the waiting list.
Our portage worker liaises closely with the OT, physio, paediatrician and SALT to ascertain targets for DD and then brings around lots of toys and games to help her achieve them. For example, DD needs to learn to isolate her index finger so she can point at things, and so my lovely portage worker brought lots of interesting cause and effect toys with buttons to press, to help stimulate her.
Portage will also come to your child's nursery or pre-school and advise on toys etc.
My portage worker has become a friend to all the family, I hope yours does too!

Portage is amazing. DD2 currently receives weekly physio/SALT/OT and Portage and I can honestly say I think Portage is our most effective therapy. Firstly it's in the home, so your child will be in very familiar surroundings and it's all play based. Seeing what your child can do and then incorporating this into an activity which is always fun. They also have a bit of knowledge about everything. They cover all areas, rather than the physio just doing the physical stuff and the SALT doing the communicating etc. Portage does it all. It's fab and wish it wasn't just a pre-school service.

portage is different in each area. Here its 12 visits, once a month and thats your lot.