Early Years practitioners who support families with children under five years can take part in nationally recognised training, for free, aimed at helping the development of children’s vocabulary.
The States Early Years Team has been working with the BBC’s Tiny Happy People Team, which will deliver the free bespoke training to the Bailiwick on 16th October 2023.
The Tiny Happy People initiative aims to reduce the ‘word gap’ by supporting parents to help develop their little ones’ vocabulary in the home learning environment. The one-hour training session, held online, aims to inform practitioners about its benefits in the hope they feel confident recommending it to families they work with.
Tiny Happy People focuses predominately on speech and language development, but also includes a wide range of information on common parenting queries including tantrums, sleep routines, feeding and SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) support.
Any practitioner keen to take advantage of the training is asked to contact zara.betts@gov.gg.
Zara Betts, Specialist Early Years Advisory Speech and Language Therapist, said:
‘This is a great opportunity for all Early Years practitioners who work with families that have children under the age of 5. Developing children’s vocabularies at a young age is so important to support them before they start school. We’ve been working with the BBC’s Tiny Happy People Team and we’re delighted they’ve agreed to run this training course for us, for free, to benefit practitioners and ultimately the families and children they support.’