Portage and Portex / 1st 4 Families Service

Wirral Portage Service provides support and guidance to parents primarily in their own homes.  It serves the youngest, most disabled children on the Wirral and provides individualised programmes of learning. 

Portage workers can support children into school/settings with transition plans and offer advice to parents re a variety of issues to support the process. 

Wirral Portage Service takes place in the child’s home in partnership with the parents who are recognised as their children’s primary educators and facilitators of their overall development. 

It is part of the SESS team and close partnerships are forged with all those working in the early years’ sector.  As part of the 1st 4 Families virtual team, we are committed to the delivery of a high quality service to the youngest most disabled children and families in Wirral. 

An educational psychologist supervises casework and manages operational issues.  We are registered with the National Portage Association and adhere to their standards and guidelines for service delivery.  We are included in the national register and database and regularly access national training and support network events. 

The demand for services is high, but we have reconfigured our model of service delivery to include weekly, fortnightly and monthly monitoring visits.  We try to process requests for involvement promptly and usually undertake our first visit jointly with the referrer. 

We would aim to see children as soon as possible after a referral was made.  There are no formal criteria to access the service although it is unlikely to be offered to children who are able to access their funded places at nursery or to those families who are unable to engage fully with the home-teaching process. 

There will be an expectation that we would continue to work with the youngest most disabled or disadvantaged children across the Wirral. 

Requests are processed on a District basis and all children are allocated to both an Educational Psychologist and a Portage team member. 

We continue to receive requests for training and development work.  It is currently restricted to training small groups of staff around specific areas of child development, disability and emotional and behavioural aspects of learning or in Portage training as an intervention. 

It is hoped to extend this in the near future with Portage groups and consultative support to other professionals.  On average each full-time Portage worker has a caseload of between 17 and 20 families who will be visited on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis depending on their needs or family circumstances. 

During the home visits families receive: 

  • A structured, cross-curricular play session with learning outcomes that are clearly identifiable and negotiated between the Portage worker and the family.
  • The opportunity to practise demonstrated skills and play activities
  • The opportunity to access information regarding other services and entitlements.
  • The opportunity to share successes and discuss any problems
  • Clear, concise activity charts and planned programmes of skill development
  • Clear target schedules and profiles of their children’s development
  • Regular reviews of targets and revised programmes of learning
  • Liaison and support with other agencies
  • Where cases are particularly complex, opportunities for key working and co-ordinating services to the child on behalf of the parents
  • A friendly listening ear!

We are currently extending our role in key working to support families and are looking at engaging more fully with the Early Support Programme for very young children with additional needs. 

Wirral Portex Service 

Wirral Portex Service mirrors the work of the Portage Team but is specifically for children who have social communication difficulties.  They support staff/parents in the setting in which the child attends re teaching strategies, advice re management and targeted programmes of intervention. 

The demands for the service are high.  Schools and settings can access the team directly through an Early Years request form after consultation with the school/setting concerned.  Parents are closely involved in the intervention. 

Contact details for more information:

Penny Bishop, Portage and Joan Nicolls, Portex on 0151 643 7070.

E-mail: pennybishop@wirral.gov.uk; joannicolls@wirral.gov.uk