What is Portage?
Portage is a home-visiting educational service for pre-school children with SEND and their families.
The Portage Model
All Portage practice is grounded in the Portage Model, which provides a flexible framework of support that respects the unique priorities of each family.
The model is built on three essential elements and adapts over time, with different aspects taking precedence as the needs of each child and family change.
Advocacy and awareness-raising
The NPA campaigns and work collaboratively with other organisations to increase access to Portage for families and improve inclusive early years support nationally.
Training and Professional Development
The NPA develops and delivers training to raise skills and standards among Portage and early years practitioners, helping ensure high-quality support for children and families.
Ensuring Quality in Portage
The NPA provides support, guidance, and information for Portage practitioners and services, helping ensure consistent, high-quality delivery across all registered services through its recognised Quality Framework.
Portage Principles
The foundation of all Portage practice is partnership, placing children and families at the centre and working alongside parents as key partners and primary educators.
This partnership also extends to multi-agency working, ensuring effective collaboration with all professionals involved with the child and family.
Portage promotes a small steps approach to learning, breaking down longer-term goals into achievable, meaningful targets that are practical and relevant to the whole child, family and their everyday life.
Through shared play and learning experiences, children and families are supported to generalise skills, encouraging participation and working towards greater inclusion within their communities.
Working in genuine partnership with families, Portage practice is supportive and enabling, offering practical strategies, guidance, signposting and collaborative problem-solving.
Portage practitioners aim to empower parents to make informed decisions about their child’s development, while building confidence in their own skills and abilities.
The Portage “can do” approach celebrates diversity and recognises that all children are able to learn and make progress.
By focusing on strengths and abilities rather than difficulties, Portage helps families to look forward with confidence, using small-step targets to recognise and celebrate success.
Families often describe Portage as highly valued for its positive and strengths-based approach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to common questions about Portage and our services.
Portage will offer a framework of support with regular home visits, generally weekly or fortnightly, by a trained Portage practitioner.
Parents share with the practitioner their understanding of their child’s individual strengths, abilities, and support needs.
Profiles or developmental checklists may support this process by helping to identify strengths and goals for future learning when Portage visits begin.
Parents should not normally be charged for Portage home visits, as these are typically provided as part of a local authority’s Portage service offer. However, some privately provided Portage services may charge a small fee for their service.
Each local Portage service has its own referral criteria, For more information, please contact your local Portage service.
Each local Portage service has its own referral criteria, including when support begins and ends.
For more information, please contact your local Portage service.
Use our Service Area Map to find your nearest Portage service.
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Need to make an enquiry?
if you have any questions please use the contact form or email us at info@portage.org.uk