Southampton City Council fact sheet
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.
Who are the Portage home visitors?
Portage home visitors have wide experience of working with families and children. All are Portage trained and receive further ongoing training to keep their skills up-to-date. Some visitors are also teachers, nursery nurses or speech and occupational therapists.
Who manages Portage?
Portage visitors are managed by Southampton psychology service, with regular supervision from qualified psychologist, Portage team manager and senior members of the team
How does Portage begin?
The Portage service has an open referral system so that anyone can refer a child they think would benefit from portage with the parents’ consent. Most requests come from health workers (such as doctors, health visitors and therapists) and some direct from parents.
Following referral an assessment home visit will be made by the Portage team manager. If Portage is offered, a visitor will be allocated as soon as possible, though the service operates a waiting list.
Portage continues until a child is receiving an appropriate education for two days per week elsewhere. The exception to this is where a child develops so well that Portage is no longer needed.
Why the unusual name?
The Portage home teaching scheme was developed in Wisconsin, USA in the early 1970’s to meet the needs of young children living in rural communities. The area was called Portage and so the programme took that name.
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Last updated: 17 November 2011