Education Minister Announces 'Language Launchpad' Initiative

Education Minister Paul Givan has unveiled a new project called 'Language Launchpad' aimed at enhancing speech, language, and communication skills in young children.

This initiative is part of a broader effort to provide support to very young children with emerging additional needs. Minister Givan emphasised the importance of Language Launchpad in offering parents, organisations, and early years providers access to free, evidence-based training.

"Speech, language and communication needs consistently feature in the top three SEN categories for pre-school and primary school children," Minister Givan stated. "The rollout of this new initiative will result in better outcomes for children who require additional support."

Language Launchpad is funded as part of a £25 million investment in Early Learning and Childcare provision. The Minister continued: "Language Launchpad, which is supported by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists working alongside community partnership Help Kids Talk, will engage directly with organisations who have contact with very young children to better support speech, language and communication development in the early years."

Ruth Sedgewick, Northern Ireland Head of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) said: "Speech, language and communication are fundamental to all children, and we know the importance of accessing support as early in life as possible. The impacts of unaddressed communication needs are serious and life-long. We also know that the challenges are growing, as our recent Early Years report highlighted an increase in both numbers and complexity of need in Northern Ireland. We welcome this funding from the Department of Education which will allow us to begin scaling up the brilliant work of Help Kids Talk. It will allow many more professionals and parents across Northern Ireland to access the specialist clinical expertise behind this training, so that they can give tried and tested support to children in their care."

The Language Launchpad project commenced in September 2024 and will run until March 2025.