Highly Specialist Speech & Language Therapist - Best Start in Life

Job overview

Thanks to new investment from Harrow Local Authority, we’re launching an exciting new Early Years Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) initiative as part of the Best Start in Life programme

We are looking for an experienced and motivated Band 7 Speech and Language Therapist to lead an innovative pilot strengthen early identification and support for speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) in nursery aged children.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the delivery of universal SLCN screening across participating nurseries
• Analyse screening outcomes and contribute to evaluation reports
• Train nursery staff to coach parents to develop language rich interactions and facilitate short, practical parent–child interaction sessions
• Work collaboratively with early years partners, Family Hubs, and BSIL leads
• Support the development of sustainable, long-term practice change in settings.

We are looking for a clinician who is:

• Experienced in Early Years and confident working with nursery-aged children
• Skilled in coaching, modelling and workforce development
• Passionate about early intervention and reducing inequalities
• Able to build strong relationships with families and early years staff
• Confident working independently and managing a small project workload

Whether you’re an experienced therapist or someone keen to develop expertise in this area, we would love to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

• Lead the delivery of a highly specialist Speech and Language Therapy service within Best Start in Life, ensuring early identification of SLCN across participating early years settings.
• Conduct universal SLCN screening for children in the eight pilot settings, analyse results, and identify children requiring targeted or specialist intervention.
• Design, plan and deliver high‑quality, highly specialist training for early years practitioners and staff, embedding coaching approaches and supporting settings to create communication‑rich environments, with a focus on early identification, responsive interaction strategies and communication‑supportive practice across all aspects of speech, language and communication.
• Lead the implementation of coaching approaches, enabling nursery staff to confidently support parents/carers in embedding communication‑rich routines
• Lead on the collection, analysis and interpretation of screening data, staff questionnaires and parent/carer feedback at baseline and 6‑month review points.
• Contribute to the alignment of the project with wider strategies, including Harrow’s SEND Strategy, Families First and national SEND reforms.
• Promote a culture of early identification and prevention, reducing escalation to specialist pathways.
• Produce high‑quality reports on outcomes, impact and learning, informing strategic planning and future commissioning.
• Ensure all recommendations and service developments are grounded in evidence, data and best practice.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the attached Job Description and Person Specification on this advert for further info.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• To work collaboratively with the EY staff and parents to support children/young people (CYP) with SLCN t improve early communication outcomes for CYP.
• To share information with others, observing confidentiality and data protection guidelines and governance, having due regard for local guidance on sharing information with colleagues in education, social care and voluntary sector.
• To communicate highly complex patient related information effectively to ensure collaborative working with multidisciplinary team members across health, education and social care and the voluntary sector. This includes CYP specific information as well as training packages to other professionals around the management of speech, language and communication.
• To have due regard for the cultural and linguistic differences of children/families concerned.
• To work closely with CYP, carers and families, involving them in decision making regarding intervention approaches demonstrating and ensuring that effective communication is achieved, particularly where barriers to understanding exist (i.e. hearing loss, communication difficulties, bilingualism, learning difficulties and other differences).
• To employ excellent communication skills such as persuasion, motivation and explanations to encourage/reassure clients and carers to undertake treatment programmes.
• To demonstrate established negotiation skills in the management of conflict across a range of situations
• To deal with initial complaints sensitively, avoiding escalation where possible and report to senior staff.
• To form productive relationships with others in particular parents/carers who may be under stress and/or have challenging communication difficulties.
• To write clinical reports as per departmental standards reflecting highly specialist knowledge
• Produce high‑quality reports on outcomes, impact and learning, informing strategic planning and future commissioning.