When first set up in 2016, I had no idea where the journey of being an Independent Speech and Language Therapist would take me. I was passionate about developing more therapeutic services and this started with 1:1 family-based referrals, which turned into what we now call our Family Service. Our Family Service provides support to families across Herefordshire and Worcestershire, run from our beautiful therapy room at Malvern Cube.
In 2019 our first school contracts began, in both Mainstream and Specialist settings, and then we were hit with the Covid-19 pandemic, which paused growth for a short while. We were back in action by 2021 and in 2022 I took the leap to employ and build a team, growing from 1-4 people within 8 months. Since 2022, we have doubled in size, rebranded using Malvern Hills Council grants, become a Community Interest Company, and now offer 3 distinct services: 1) Family Service, 2) Mainstream Schools service and 3) SEND settings service, working across 20 different schools.
Our team are multi-talented and skilled, with experience and passion across so many different areas of SLCN. In the last academic year our first Newly Qualified Speech and Language Therapists joined the team, and it has been a joy to work with Therapists new to the profession. Our Professional Development Programme outlines how we support CPD on an annual basis, fulfilling HCPC requirements and ensuring staff have frequent opportunities to learn.
Reflecting on a decade of growth is fascinating; we continue to learn and evolve as a team, adding new training and CPD as we go. Over the past 4 years we have been trained in a whole range of Evidence Based Approaches, such as the Talk Boost programmes, BEST sentences, AAC SCERTS, with team-wide CPD planned for the upcoming academic year in Selective Mutism and Stammering. Children’s Speech and Language Needs, research, professional guidance and approaches, are constantly evolving in our field, and we continue to evolve with them.
The next academic year will see even more changes, with the new SEND reform unfolding. We have already started planning for this, evidencing how our services in Mainstream Schools are/can be used to meet the 7 inclusion principles, which can be found on our website, and providing input at Universal, Targeted and Specialist levels. As part of our school contracts, we can and do provide direct intervention and indirect through training others, already providing an ‘Experts at Hand’ model.
We are excited for this academic year, with many projects and CPD in the pipeline, including starting a ‘Stammering’ service and continuing with our ‘free’ means-tested Family Service sessions. Here’s to the next 10 years of Wordful!
