Southampton Portage Service

What is Portage?
Portage is a home teaching service for pre-school children with special educational needs and their families.

Portage is an internationally recognised home visiting programme which offers support, help and advice to parents in the care and development of their pre-school child (0-4 years) with special educational needs. The needs of each child are looked at individually in consultation with parents and with reference to a developmental checklist.

How does Portage work?
In Southampton families are visited on a regular weekly basis by a Portage home visitor, who works with them to design a set of activities aimed at stimulating the development of their child. Parents know their own children best and portage builds on this knowledge so that families can, with confidence, teach their own child in manageable steps. A few minutes is needed each day when the family can practise the agreed activities with the child, in a fun way.

Starting from where the child is at, Portage aims to promote:
• Physical development
• Social development
• Self-help development
• Thinking and language development

The strength of the Portage way of working is supporting development through parents, and involving other professionals and services as appropriate.

Portage also works closely with the Sure Start children’s centres in the city, providing groups for pre-school children aimed at developing language and social skills.

The Portage service also provides educational input, into Wordsworth House children’s assessment centre, 121-123 Tremona Road, Southampton.

For more information please see the fact sheet on the right of this page.

Contact Details:
Willow Annexe - Shirley Warren Primary School
Southampton
SO16 6AY
Tel: 023 8083 4375
Email: portage@southampton.gov.uk