Hello everyone and welcome to Wordful’s first blog!!
Wow, what a winter it has been! We rebranded in November 2024, welcomed 2 new schools to the Wordful network and recruited our 6th Speech and Language Therapist!! Through snow, wind, rain and ice, we battled through all conditions to deliver our SLT service across the 2 counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Whilst winter has its beauty, we are so excited for Spring to now arrive!
You might have seen the beautiful picture book ‘Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring’ by Kenard Pak (featured above)
Our rebrand
The book is a journey from the cold, dark days of winter, to the bright and warm days of Spring. At Wordful we love this book and everything it represents: new beginnings and hope, much like the journey of our rebrand. We invested heavily, utilising a Malvern Hills Growth Grant to design and plan our new brand. It was a labour of passion and foresight! We launched earlier than expected, during our busiest time in the Autumn term, when our school referrals are at their highest and days are their longest, but we knew as soon as we were ready, we wanted to spread the word (excuse the pun!).
free Stay and Play
Wordful has been up and running since November 2024 and after a few months to appreciate the hard work and catch our breath, we can now look forward to beautiful spring with longer, lighter days. We kick off this season with a free Stay and Play on 21/3/25 for parents/carers of 2–4-year-olds; if you know anyone who might need our help please do let them know!
Community Interest Company
We are now a Community Interest Company and developing ways to give back to our local community – sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media to stay in the Wordful loop.
New Training
This winter, in addition to rebranding, I wrote a new training package for Speech and Language Therapists: Trauma-Informed Speech and Language Therapy.
The course explores the impact of trauma on Speech, Language and Communication Needs, and how we assess and work with children who may have experienced developmental trauma. Another string to our holistic service, where we see children at the centre of their worlds to really understand what happened to them and how we can help them.
Bye Winter, Hello Spring
And so, it’s a wrap on our busy Winter/Autumn term. Thank you for your support as we bring our CiC vision to life! We will be blogging every few weeks to highlight our service and keep everyone up to date on developments!
Kirsty Finnegan – Wordful Director
