About the Best Start in Speech, Language and Communication programme

This elearning programme has been developed in partnership with Health Education England elearning for healthcare, Public Health England and the Department for Education.

Best Start in Speech, Language and Communication outlines the importance of the development of children’s speech and language skills for health visitors working with pre-school children and their families.

More information

The ability to communicate is fundamental to all of us. It is a set of skills that starts early in life and continues across the life course. Whilst we each develop at a different pace, there are key milestones in speech, language and communication (SLC) development. When these are not reached, they indicate that additional support may need to be offered to a young child and their carers. If children do not get this support early enough, it can mean that their speech, language and communication development is behind that of other children, risking poor outcomes across their life course. Through early identification of need and working in partnership with parents to support their child’s SLC, we can make a difference for children to achieve their full potential.

Working through the three modules within this SLC training programme will cover an introduction into SLC development, the importance of the home learning environment, SLC risk factors, early indicators of speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), a behaviour change model, and assessment tools. Evidenced-based resources and links to the latest research will help you to empower parents and carers to support their child to achieve the best start in life for speech, language and communication.

There are three learning modules:

1. Working with families to support speech, language and communication development;
2. Supporting children with speech, language and communication needs;
3. Early identification of speech, language and communication needs in children and how to support families.

In addition to the elearning modules, this programme also provides access to:

• A Parent Facing Pathway that you can use to support your conversations with parents and carers
• Public Health England’s SLC Health Visitor Train the Trainer Programme resources (for those disseminating SLC training locally)
• Public Health England’s Early Language Identification Measure and Intervention (ELIM) Training resources (for those disseminating ELIM training locally)
• An All Our Health Speech, Language and Communication session

How to access

In order to access the Best Start in Speech, Language and Communication programme, you will need an elfh account. If you do not have one, then you can register by selecting the Register button below.

Register >

To view the Best Start in Speech, Language and Communication programme, select the View button below. If you already have an account with elfh, you will also be able to login and enrol on the programme from the View button.

View >

Not an NHS organisation?

If you are not an NHS health or care organisation and therefore do not qualify for free access elfh Hub, you may be able to access the service by creating an OpenAthens account.

To check whether or not you qualify for free access via OpenAthens, you can view the eligibility criteria and register on the ‘OpenAthens’ portal.

Registering large numbers of users

If you are a HR, IT or Practice Manager and would like to register and enrol large numbers of staff within your organisation for access onto the Best Start in Speech, Language and Communication programme, please contact elfh directly.

Organisations wishing to use their own LMS

For HR departments wanting to know more about gaining access to courses using an existing Learning Management System please contact elfh directly to express interest.

More information

Please select the following link for more information on how to use the elfh Hub.