Ireland
Speech and Language UK has been working with settings and organisations in the Republic of Ireland for many years.
Speech and Language UK has recently partnered with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) in Ireland, in collaboration with TUSLA, the Child and Family Agency; the Health Service Executive (HSE); and Better Start, to begin the roll out of Early Talk Boost as a setting targeted support, in Equal Start Early Years settings in Ireland.
Equal Start is the funding model and set of associated universal and targeted measures to support access and participation in early learning and childcare for children and their families who experience disadvantage.
The model aims to offer the Early Talk Boost programme to all appropriate settings over the coming years. In 2023/ 2024, TUSLA and Mary Immaculate College produced an independent evaluation report of selected settings using Early Talk Boost in the Republic of Ireland.
Any Equal Start services in Ireland who are looking for information on the Equal Start and Early Talk Boost project, please contact Suzanne Reilly, Senior Speech and Language therapist, HSE Mid West/ ABC Start right at Suzanne.reilly@hse.ie or Better Start at professionaldevelopment@betterstart.ie
For other settings, or Equal Start settings interested in Talk Boost KS1, KS2 or any of our other programmes, we have a number of tutors based in the Republic of Ireland, as well as tutors located in the UK who are able to run remote training for our programmes.
We are able to ship any of our resources to Ireland, you can get in touch with the team at info@speechandlanguage.org.uk to place an order.
The Early Talk Boost programme is a joy to be involved with. The programme’s activities, songs, books and Tizzy are much loved by Early Years staff and children and the outcomes for its participants are remarkable. It strengthens language development and social communication skills and has an obvious impact on the confidence of children involved. As a clinician it also helps to cement relationships between therapists, EY staff and parents to ensure we can continue to work collaboratively to address key areas of need for children. I hope to be involved with this programme for many more years to come and look forward to its roll out to even more EY settings.
This is our third year delivering Early Talkboost to preschoolers. The children engage really well with the activities, enjoy the songs and taking home the books to share the stories with their family. From our perspective, we see a huge improvement in their listening skills and a comprehensive development in their language use with greater confidence to share their understandings and ideas. We will be using this programme for every group going forward.
