About
What we do and why
Meet the team
What we do and why
Help Kids Talk is an award winning project within Early Intervention Lisburn (EIL) which is led by the Resurgam Community Development Trust, the SEHSCT Speech and Language Therapy Team, Barnardo’s NI, and Early Intervention Lisburn partnership. Help Kids Talk is funded by the Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council. The Help Kids Talk vision is that “everyone will work together to help kids talk”.
The project is a community-wide initiative and aims to ensure everyone with responsibility for babies, children or young people, prioritises their speech, language, and communication development. This project will result in a positive impact across all areas of a child’s life including educational attainment, mental health and wellbeing, social relationships, and employability later in life.
Why is this project important?
In some of the most disadvantaged areas of Northern Ireland, research has shown that a high proportion of children are starting pre-school with language needs and difficulties. In 2016 the SEHSCT carried out research in on 172 children in socio-economically deprived areas of the SEHSCT and found that 26% of these children had difficulty in at least 1 area of language.
Research carried out by Early Intervention Lisburn in 2013 in 9 Lisburn primary schools highlighted that 32% of children entering Primary 1 in September 2013 had a mild to severe speech and language difficulty. 76% of these children were male, from more disadvantaged communities in Lisburn.
Similar statistics in Northern Ireland have shown that in some of the most disadvantaged communities in Northern Ireland over 40% of children are starting pre-school with language delay or difficulty. We know that children with speech, language, and communication issues are at high risk of experiencing difficulties with reading, writing, and spelling.
We also know that the range of a child’s vocabulary at age 5 is a very strong predictor of qualifications at school leaving age, and without support, over 1/3 of children with speech, language, and communication issues go on to have support from mental health services later in life.
Our Team
Help Kids Talk is a community wide partnership. Our steering group is comprised of representatives from across community, voluntary, statutory and private sectors including; Barnardo’sNI, Surestart, Home-Start, ALTRAM, Northern Ireland Childminding Association, Public Health Agency, South Eastern HSC Trust (Speech and Language Therapy Team, Health Visiting and Health Improvement) LibrariesNI, Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy, principals from local nurseries and schools, local church leaders and a grandmother. We also have a parent representative group and involve local children and young people too. Everyone works together to collectively plan and make shared decisions to improve outcomes for children and young people.
Help Kids Talk Coordinator
Kerry Mullholland
Early Intervention Lisburn Manager
Mabel Scullion
Lisa McMahon
Service Administrator
Roberta Marshall
Help Kids Talk Practitioner
