Links for Parents/Carers

The links here will take you to websites of agencies and charities that can provide support for you and your family.

Cognition and Learning

The Dyslexia Outreach Service is part of the Cognition and Learning specialism of Norfolk Specialist Resource Bases (SRBs) but works wholly on an outreach and capacity building basis. We work in all key stages, from age 5-18, and are part-funded by Norfolk County to provide an accessible and affordable traded service to all schools, including academies, free schools and independent schools. (For a further 10% off all DOS services, plus other associated benefits, please see membership details below).

Nessy has been making fun, educational software for children since 1999 and has developed a reputation for exceptional quality. Nessy offers the complete dyslexia aware solution with a suite of multisensory products aimed at making learning to read, write and spell fun.

Nessy is used globally by hundreds of thousands of teachers and students and is a 3 time winner at the prestigious Educational Resources Awards.

Transform your child's reading in 10 minutes a day.

Dyslexia Gold is an online dyslexia program that improves two root causes of dyslexia - convergence insufficiency (being unable to focus both eyes on the same letter) and the phonological deficit (being unable to hear how a word is made up of different sounds).

The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) is the voice of dyslexic people. We aim to influence government and other institutions to promote a dyslexia friendly society that enables dyslexic people of all ages to reach their full potential.

The BDA promotes early identification of specific learning difficulties (SpLD) and support in schools to ensure opportunity to learn for dyslexic learners.

From our beginnings in 2003 as a friendly support organisation, we progressed in 2005 to not-for-profit company status and registered as the charity Indigo Foundation (Norfolk) Ltd. 2016 we eventually became what we are now, the limited company Indigo Solutions Ltd.

Over the years Indigo has progressed from a small support group to the largest and premier supplier of assessments for specific learning difficulties in East Anglia. Indigo is the lead supplier for assessments to the educational industry, holding multiple contracts with various educational suppliers throughout the region. We are also preferred supplier of most of the county’s statutory bodies. We conduct assessments both on-site at institutions and from our three locations in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

Communication and Interaction

ChatterPack makes ordinary resources and visuals extraordinary, our user-friendly ‘pickup-and-go’ resources include:

  • Straightforward, no-experience-required, step-by-step instructions.

  • Tips and advice throughout to make simple adaptions that will suit the individual needs of children and young people.

  • Designed using a positive, proactive approach, they encourage children and young people to develop independence skills through motivation, reward, and explicit teaching.

  • The tips and advice are great for CPD and those with experience will be able to transfer these into other situations when working with children and young people with SEND

We want a world where all children have the communication skills they need to fulfil their potential. We’re working towards this vision by:

  • Offering practical help for parents who are concerned about their child

  • Empowering early years and school professionals through training, support and information

  • Running outreach programmes in the community

  • Developing intervention programmes for delivery in over 5,000 nurseries and schools across the UK

Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust provides a broad range of community and inpatient mental health services, community services (including therapies), learning disability services, healthy lifestyle support and addictions services to people living in Hull, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Whitby, Scarborough, and Ryedale. We provide care to a population of 765,000 people of all ages who live within an area of more than 4,700 square kilometres, which contains some areas of isolated rurality, dispersed major settlements and pockets of significant deprivation.

The Communication Trust is a coalition of over 50 not-for-profit organisations.

Working together we support everyone who works with children and young people in England to support their speech, language and communication. Our work focuses on supporting children and young people who struggle to communicate because they have speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) as well as supporting all children and young people to communicate to the best of their ability.

We do this because our ability to communicate affects us in every aspect of our lives. Many children could be helped to communicate better and some children need really focused support to reach their full potential. No child or young person should be denied that opportunity.

‘time to talk’™ is Warwickshire’s strategy for supporting the development of speech, language and communication skills of babies and young children in Children’s Centres, Early Years and Childcare settings.

Our vision is to create and celebrate opportunities for all children to achieve their potential in speech, language and communication, working together with and in response to the local needs of local communities.

Speech Link Multimedia Ltd was formed in 2004 in the UK and since then we have continued to develop innovative and award winning support packages for children with SLCN. Our ongoing mission is to bring Speech and Language Therapy knowledge and expertise to every school to help all children reach their full communication potential.

Our Vision is for all school staff to be able to identify and support all children with speech, language and communication needs appropriately so no child is left behind at school or in life through poor understanding of language.

Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT) covers a broad range of work. Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) assess and support people with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), to help them to communicate better. They also work with people who have eating and swallowing problems.

SLTs work with people of all ages, from babies through to adulthood. They can work in a clinic or hospital, children’s centre, early years setting or in a school.

Autism Anglia is an independent charity which provides care and support to autistic children, adults and their families in East Anglia.

Services in Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, managed from offices in Colchester and Dereham, offer personalised approaches that provide each individual with the necessary skills and strategies to enable them to realise their own strengths and abilities.

The charity also seeks to promote greater knowledge and understanding of autism through training, education and supplying information to the public and professionals.

Sensory and Physical

There has been increasing neuroscience evidence for use of Sensory Integration (S.I.) to treat SPD in children, young people and adults. This involves suitably qualified therapists providing opportunities for clients to actively engage in sensory experiences in order to promote neurological plasticity to ultimately enhance function. This can only be delivered by therapists who have undertaken extensive post graduate training in Sensory Integration by SI Network.

Our vision is a society in which disabled children and young people’s rights are respected, their aspirations supported and life chances are assured.

We want disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs to have full and happy childhoods, to fulfil their potential, and be active within the community. And we want parents of disabled children to be parents first - living ordinary lives.

Social, Emotional and Mental Health

At Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust we provide mental health and learning disability services in Norfolk and Suffolk. At the Trust, we believe in recovery and wellbeing, and understand the importance of good physical health, maintaining relationships and achieving a balance between treatments and continuing an active life.

Service users and carers are at the centre of all aspects of our work and are vital in helping shape and support our service strategy. Our strategy supports and enables people with mental health problems, or who need to improve their wellbeing, to live a fulfilling life and make their personal recovery journey.

We’re leading the fight for a future where all young minds are supported and empowered, whatever the challenges. We’re here to make sure they get the best possible mental health support and have the resilience to overcome life’s difficulties.

The crisis in children and young people’s mental health is real and it is urgent. More children and young people than ever before are reaching out for help with their mental health. But for those who take that brave step, help is much too hard to find.

Together, we are changing this. We’re fighting for young people’s mental health. Join our fight.

We offer professional support for infants, children and young people experiencing the early signs of mental health and emotional problems.

Our emotional wellbeing service is available to any child or young person living in Norfolk or Waveney, or registered with a Norfolk or Waveney GP. We offer short-term interventions to address the early signs of mental ill-health, to ensure infants, children and young people go on to achieve their full potential in life. Our services are delivered by Ormiston Families, working with the youth charity MAP and Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT). We also work with the local community to de-stigmatise issues around mental health. Our aim is to raise awareness so that children, young people and their families understand when and how to seek support.

We are a Norfolk charity that supports children and young people up to their 18th birthday who have experienced the death of a significant person in their life. We provide a range of support, appropriate for the needs of each child or young person. This may include one-to-one support and opportunities to meet others their age who have also experienced a bereavement.

Every bereaved child in Norfolk will look forward to a positive future, empowered to reach their full potential

Our ambition is perhaps best summarised by our strap line: bringing back smiles.

ADHD Norfolk recognises ADHD/ADD as a complex but easily treatable condition, which can have a profound effect on individuals, families, schools and society. We aim to raise awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding ADHD, whilst providing support and advice for anyone affected by ADHD/ADD in Norfolk.

ADHD Norfolk works with its partner organisations to assist individuals, families, schools and other organisations to improve the lives of those with ADHD/ADD. We work to promote emotional wellbeing, educational attainment and maximise life prospects through increasing the understanding of ADHD/ADD.

Additional Support Sites

Our service offers advice and support to families from the antinatal period through to their child being 19 years of age. Our team is made up of health professionals who all have skills in different areas of family work.

This includes health visitors, school nurses, family nurses and a range of practitioners with specialist skills to support children and young people with specific health needs.

Our aim is to support you to develop the skills and knowledge you need to feel confident as a parent and so that you can help your child to be the best that they can be.

We offer: information, advice and support to children, young people and parents/carers about special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This includes health and social care where it is linked to education.

We are a free, dedicated, confidential and impartial service based in Norwich with volunteers across the county. Staff and volunteers are independently trained in SEND.

We have a Steering Group which includes parents and representatives from local voluntary groups, Children’s Services, the Parent Carer Forum, schools, Education and Social Care, as well as Health. Together we plan the services we offer across Norfolk.

We provide free, confidential and impartial advice and guidance on funded early education and childcare, home learning and related services in Norfolk, including:

  • Funded early education and childcare for 2-year-olds

  • Funded early education and childcare for all 3 and 4-year-olds

  • The 30 hours entitlement for working parents

  • Help you can get with childcare costs, including childcare for working parents

  • Types of early education and childcare providers, including childminders, pre-schools, nurseries and out of school childcare

  • Help finding childcare - we maintain and update the details of registered providers in the county in the Norfolk Community Directory

  • Playing and learning at home and activities for children and young people

We are all parent carers or close family members of children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

We believe that our members are uniquely placed to help improve the experiences of families like ours in the education, health and social care services.

We know at first hand how stressful and isolating advocating for our children can be.

We believe that every new member increases our ability to make things better for our families.

Increasingly, service providers and decision-makers can see that working with us ensures that money is spent more efficiently and services are targeted more effectively.