The North Somerset Portage service is a home-visiting service for pre-school children with extra educational needs.
Portage provides home teaching for young children with developmental delay including those with severe learning disabilities. The success and popularity of Portage is based on the fact that it accepts the role of parents as the key figures in a child's development. Portage is home centred. Portage practitioners help parents to become more effective teachers of their own children by sharing with them a precision teaching system, which is both flexible to both individual needs and carefully structured.
Parents of children with developmental delay and severe learning disabilities are welcome to self refer.
Portage visits are built around four main activities:
- regular home visits by a trained home visitor
- regularly reviewed teaching activities designed for each individual child and parent
- teaching and recording carried out by the parent
- regular supervision of the portage practitioner