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Carer centres and services Kent Portage Service

Contact us

About

The Kent Portage Team supports pre-school children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND). We work with families, focusing on planned play activities to help each child’s development.

If there are concerns about a child’s development and they are not meeting key milestones we may be able to offer some additional help.

We support pre-school children who have a significant delay in 2 or more areas of their development. Children do not need to have a diagnosis for a referral to be made, parents and professionals can make referrals.

Contact us to make a referral:

· a Portage referral form can be accessed via the Local offer page, search Portage

· call: 03000 41 77 04

· email: kentportage@kent.gov.uk.

What we offer:

We offer weekly pre-school learning groups, home learning sessions and virtual support. We could offer a combination of learning groups and home learning sessions.

· Sensory groups usually support the youngest children and have a music and tactile focus.

· Early learning groups plan play activities for more actively mobile children.

· Pre-school learning groups support your child’s next steps towards attending an early years setting (for example a nursery, childminder or pre-school).

These sessions support each child’s learning and development through play, giving families an opportunity to try out different approaches and strategies in the session as well as ideas to try at home.

Home learning sessions are either weekly, fortnightly, monthly or virtually. Portage Practitioners work with each family to assess children’s strengths and needs, and then create individual play activities that support the child and family.

Opening times

Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm

Access

- this is a home-visiting service

Catchment area

Kent

Target group

This service is for pre-school children with additional support needs and their families.

Referral method

Self-referral or referral by other professionals involved.

This information was supplied by Serco Global Services on 1 April 2025.