ICAN's 10th birthday celebrations
On Thursday (4 October) a special party was held for nursery children at Obsdale Primary School in Alness to celebrate 10 years of ICAN - a specialist Early Years’ service for children with specific speech and language disorders.
Ten years ago this provision was introduced to provide intensive help, within an inclusive nursery environment, to pre-school children who had specific speech and language disorders. A decade later and the service continues to offer support to develop the communication skills and confidence of the children, and at the same time providing advice and support to early years workers.
The service is run and delivered jointly by a team of Early Years Education staff and Speech and Language Therapists, and has become well established in the base at Obsdale Primary School.
An outreach service, visiting other Early Years settings and families from around the local area and much further afield to support them and to help them to develop their own practice and knowledge is also available.
Acting Head Teacher Susan Josey said: “Many children, families and staff have been supported directly and indirectly throughout the 10 years that this provision has been available. This essential service continues to deal with an increasing number of referrals and is now supporting and training staff from a wide range of agencies from the wider Highland area.
“The team remain committed to developing this service within Highland, enabling a wider range of people to benefit from it whilst continuing to implement the early intervention that is required to enable these children to grow into confident communicators both at home and in school.”
The Highland Council’s Director of Education, Culture and Sport Hugh Fraser visited the school to thank everyone involved for their hard work. He said: ““Being able to speak, use language and communicate with others is one of the basic necessities for happiness and success. It affects our ability to learn, form relationships and make friends. To run such a crucial service successfully for 10 years is a real achievement and a testament to the commitment of the highly skilled staff teams, who are dedicated to achieving good results for children in the area.”