Our new partnership will bring specialist early years expertise to EasyPeasy’s innovative, evidence-based support for families.
EasyPeasy is delighted to announce a new partnership with Dingley’s Promise, leading educators of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in the early years. This forms part of our continued work to develop digital, evidence-based programmes that empower parents and carers to improve the home learning environment, support developmental progress, and find joy in the everyday moments they have with their child.
Through the partnership, Dingley’s Promise will provide quality assurance to EasyPeasy’s new content specifically designed to support children in their earliest years with additional needs, bringing their expertise and experience of over 40 years of specialist SEND support to the development and review of resources, made available to families through the EasyPeasy app.
The partnership builds on EasyPeasy’s existing additional needs support, which provides parents and carers with practical guidance and play-based ideas that can be used at home. Our ambition is to go further, developing an approach that helps families understand and respond to their child’s individual development, including at a stage when needs may be emerging, and families may not have a diagnosis or be accessing specialist support.
Responding earlier to emerging needs
The early years are a critical period of development, and children do not all develop in the same way or at the same pace. For families, understanding how best to support a child who is experiencing difficulties with areas such as communication, attention, sensory processing or emotional regulation can be challenging, particularly while waiting for further advice, assessment or specialist support.
Our needs-led approach is therefore focused on areas of development rather than diagnoses. Support should meet children at their current stage of development and help families build from there. We want to help parents and carers celebrate where their child is now, identify the areas where they may benefit from additional support, and access practical ideas to support their progress.
Practical support that works in everyday family life
A central focus of EasyPeasy’s work in this area will be translating specialist knowledge into the realities of family life. Our app-based delivery allows parents to access help at a time that suits them and involves no screen time for children.
Small changes such as reducing distractions, adapting routines or finding different ways to play together can all form part of the support available to families. Not every family has additional space, time or resources available to them, and support should help parents and carers to work with and enhance their environments in practical ways. This practical, strengths-based approach is at the heart of EasyPeasy: giving families manageable ideas that can be incorporated into everyday interactions and routines.
Jen Lexmond, Founder & CEO of EasyPeasy, says:
“I founded EasyPeasy to meet families where they were, not where people thought they should be. Our partnership with Dingley’s Promise is an important part of our wider investment in support for children with emerging and additional needs. By bringing together their specialist expertise with EasyPeasy’s focus on practical, accessible support for families, we can make sure what we develop is grounded in evidence while reflecting the realities of family life. Ultimately, we want more families to be able to access the right support earlier, while complementing the vital role that local authorities and specialist services play.”
Catherine Mole MBE, CEO of Dingley’s Promise, says:
“Dingley’s Promise is pleased to be supporting EasyPeasy in the development of SEND-specific resources. Families are at the heart of everything we do at Dingley’s Promise, and many are not able to access practical advice that is focused and relevant to children with SEND. We are excited to work with EasyPeasy to ensure resources for families of children with SEND are as supportive and accessible as possible, enabling them to support their child’s development effectively.”
About Dingley's Promise
The Dingley’s Promise team bring with them over 40 years of experience working with children with SEND. The charity provides tailored specialist support to children under 5 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The children they work with have a wide range of additional needs, including cognitive delay, autism, physical disabilities, genetic conditions and life-limiting conditions.
As well as their current 12 early years settings, they support families via an outreach programme and are delivering SEND inclusion training to those working in the early years across England. They are also lobbying the government for vital improvements to funding, access, sufficiency and workforce development in the early years.