Early Years Outreach
Early Years Outreach
Early Years Outreach is a service for educational practitioners who support children that have social communication difficulties and/or a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We provide assistance for those children for whom such difficulties can act as a barrier to learning; with information relating to strategies that can help overcome such barriers.
The Early Years Outreach service is open to children in mainstream Nursery Classes. In addition, we support children in Flying Start Playgroup settings. Referrals are made through the Early Years Forum.
Other Early Years Outreach services include:
For parents
Early Bird Programme
Developed by the National Autistic Society, this programme aims to empower and support parents and carers of young children who have an ASD diagnosis; up to the age of 5 years and 2 months.
Three programmes are run each year, one per term and two places are allocated to each family. The eight weekly group sessions are held at The Hollies School and run between 9.30am – 12.00pm.
Audience: families with pre-school children who have a diagnosis of ASD.
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APPEAL
APPEAL is a free Autism training programme for parents with English as an additional language. The programme is Autism specific and has been developed at The Hollies School to support parents and carers who have not previously been able to access training.
Parents and carers are supported by an interpreter which is organised and funded by The Hollies School. The content is clear, visually supported, with practical activities and time for group discussion.
Audience: parents with English as an additional language
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For professionals
Autism Awareness Training
A range of evidence-informed strategies, including visual support and communication strategies which can be applied in a practical way to support learners with ASD/Communication Difficulties.
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Audience: educational practitioners working with children who have a diagnosis of ASD or are on the ‘Neurodevelopmental Pathway’.
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The Early Years Outreach team and the Speech Therapy team run the National Autistic Society EarlyBird Programme at The Hollies School. This is an eight week programme for parents of pre school and nursery aged children with a diagnosis of ASD. The team have all been trained at the National Autistic Society EarlyBird Centre in South Yorkshire. Three programmes are run each year, one per term. Up to six families attend each programme, which aims to empower parents / carers, support families in the period between diagnosis and school and help establish good practice in the very important early years of development.