There are four key aims of Early Talk: • To enable staff to create communication rich environments for all children through ‘supportive’ level training and accreditation. This universal level of training teaches staff about typical communication development and the types of activities and techniques that help all children develop their communication skills as fully as possible. The aim is to give children the best chance of starting school with the abilities they need to learn and join in effectively. • To help staff to identify children who are struggling as early as possible and enable them to access support quickly. ‘Supportive’ level training helps staff recognise when children are not developing typically and who to refer to for support. This could be help tailored to the child’s needs in a mainstream nursery setting, or support in a more specialist setting, depending on the nature and severity of their disability. • To offer more intensive communication support in ‘enhanced’ and ‘specialist’ accredited settings, which help children with moderate to severe communication disabilities. • To provide staff with training on how to involve parents, passing on strategies and advice that will encourage and help parents in supporting their child’s communication development at home. I CAN Early Talk includes: Accreditation of settings which provides quality assurance and helps identify best practice. Accreditation is offered at three levels which reflects the needs of settings and their degree of specialisation in children’s communication development Training for practitioners on speech, language and communication development and difficulties at three levels and a bursary for a Masters degree in collaborative practice Research to support the development of evidence based practice A free membership package including the termly Early Talk magazine Networking opportunities Specialist advisory support from the Early Talk team to help with the development of integrated services for children. Early Talk is now being rolled out in nurseries across the UK and is set to support the communication development of 200,000 children On 22 November 2007 I CAN was awarded the ‘Early Years Award’ in the Children and Young People’s Services Awards 2007 for our Early Talk programme. This is a great tribute to our team's expertise and our supporters.