by Henrietta McLachlan with Elklan Tutors

This invaluable book provides detailed information, advice and activities to support practitioners working with vulnerable 8-25 year olds in a wide variety of education provisions. There is particularly detailed information to help practitioners to understand the needs of children and young people where there is a concern about the social, emotional and mental health and how they are trying to cope in an education environment. They may be at risk of exclusion, or being part of the youth justice system or they may be opting out of formal education. For many, they face significant challenges on a daily basis, whether this is at home, in care, specialist provisions or education settings.

This book, and the course, ‘Supporting Vulnerable 8-25 with SEMH and SLC Needs’ invites the reader to reflect on their speech, language and communication needs which are often masked and missed as focus is given to the visible behaviours. Strategies to support different aspects of speech, language and communication are explained so that practitioners can adapt their language and interaction but also learning activities to meet the needs of individual children and young people. It has been written to be accessible to SENCOs, teachers, pastoral care teams, teaching assistants in mainstream and specialist education provisions including Inclusion Bases, Education Otherwise than at School (EOTAS), youth justice case managers, social care staff, social workers, and parents.

Many aspects of communication are covered including:

• What is involved in communication
• The development of SEMH
• Supportive communication and learning environments
• Listening, Attention and Memory
• Understanding spoken Language
• Developing verbal reasoning, Blank Language Scheme and Elklan’s Level 5
• Supporting social and emotional literacy
• Promoting vocabulary development
• Supporting expressive and narrative skills
• The link between speech, language and literacy
• Accessing ‘Talking Therapies’ and other interventions.

Language Builders for Vulnerable 8-25s with SEMH and SLC Needs forms the core reading material for the accredited course ‘Supporting Vulnerable 8-25 with SEMH and SLC Needs’.