The Speaking and Listening Bridge Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - 09:28

Developing and delivering innovative approaches to enhancing speaking and listening skills for families with complex needs, is the focus of a new NIACE project launched on 19 September and funded by John Lyon's Charity.

The Speaking and Listening Bridge project will support two London Boroughs - Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham - encouraging each authority to take an approach that's suitable, based on local needs and existing services.

It will work with the hardest to reach families in the two boroughs to introduce speaking and listening skills between parents and children and to develop progression models from one to one support into learning groups. The project will be evaluated in terms of the changes in:

• Speaking and listening skills between parents and children.
• The family's approach to learning.
• Children's communication skills.

Mandy Thomas, NIACE Project Officer, said:

"We are delighted to be working with the boroughs of Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham on this project. We know that effective communication skills make all the difference to individuals' life chances; and that speaking and listening skills underpin these. We know that children develop their own speaking and listening skills through interacting with the adults around them. We want to show that working with parents and children together improves communication skills for both, and helps the whole family to engage with learning."