'Early Talk 0-3' will ensure that all parents get consistent advice and support from the children’s workforce. We will target midwives, health visitors and practice nurses, but the programme will potentially be much wider and include social services staff and others. The staff groups will be equipped with information, resources and training. Improvements made through 'Early Talk 0-3' will include: • Health and social services staff will have heightened awareness of the importance of children’s communication development and will relay this to parents. This in itself has been shown to have a positive impact on children. • The children’s workforce and parents will know what typical language development is and so be alerted to potential problems. • Health visitors and other professionals will provide consistent information and be able to support and advise parents on different ways of supporting language development at different ages and stages. • Parents and families will be more able to support children’s language development at home through every day activities (like nappy changing, going for a walk, meal times and play time). • Where a child has a problem, referrals to specialists will be made promptly and appropriately. The workforce will have a shared understanding of causes for concern so that children with problems are identified as early as possible. • Parents will have specific activities to do with their children and strategies to use when communicating with them. These will be provided through the workforce who will be trained to identify which activities and strategies are suitable for which children and when. • Midwives will know risk factors for communication problems and which parents they need to specifically target with information before and after birth. Risk factors include indicators related to social deprivation as will as children having disabilities such as hearing impairments or cleft palate. • Families will also be able to access information directly through web based services and other resources. • Although 'Early Talk 0-3' is targeted at 0-3 year olds, the information provided to parents can potentially help throughout a child’s development. Summary Budget Development phase 2008-09: £45,788 2009-10: £45,301 Pilot, evaluation and roll-out 2009-10: £87,153 2010-11: £133,320 2011-12: £41,836 Total: £353,398