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Downloadable Wiping Target for Toileting 

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Downloadable Wiping Target for Toileting 

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GMAC - Everything you need about autism and more.

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GMAC - Everything you need about autism and more.

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GMAC - Everything you need about autism and more.

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GMAC - Everything you need about autism and more.

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Everything you need about autism and more.

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Referral Forms and Process for Senco referrals to CYPOT

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Referral Forms and Process for Senco referrals to CYPOT

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SENDCo referral process for Occupational Therapy

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Parent School Referral Questionaire 2025

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toe walking older child_version 1_may 2020

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Please find videos that you can show to children how to complete essential daily acitivites.

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Please find examples of activities that may help regulate the child in the classroom.

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Please find videos of gross motor activity examples.

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We provide a safe, high quality Specialist Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy service which aims to empower children and young people of Salford to reach their full potential.

Our team's friendly, child and family centred approach allows us to provide the knowledge and skills that are relevant to a child or young person to help them to achieve their functional goals.

Physiotherapy helps children who are affected by disability, illness or injury through the promotion of movement skill development and independence. We do this by assessing a child's needs and abilities and providing the knowledge and skills required to help a child reach their full potential.

Occupational Therapy provides a range of interventions for children and young people who, as a result of an acute or developmental condition and/or lifelong disability, may experience functional difficulties in taking care of themselves or taking part in school-based or leisure activities. An Occupational Therapist may also recommend specialist equipment to help your child to achieve their full potential.

Core therapy services

Our Core Therapy service is divided into a west and central neighbourhood teams, Paediatric Musculoskeletal service, Special school team and the functional Occupational Therapy service.
We provide a specialist service to all children and young people 0-16 years (0-19 in full time education or special school) who are registered with a Salford GP or who live in Salford. Dependent on the information provided at referral you will either see a Physiotherapist, an Occupational Therapist or both. The initial assessment will be arranged in the most appropriate environment for the child and where the appropriate assessments can take place.

Therapy Teams

West Neighbourhood team
Central Neighbourhood team
Special Schools Team
Functional Occupational Therapy Team

Physiotherapy

We support children and young people who present with functional difficulties with movement, posture or skill development. We work with children and their families to develop the child's movement skills, encourage independence, and promote health and wellbeing. We have a particular focus on a child's gross motor skills (large body movements such as crawling or jumping) and postural stability. Postural stability optimises the central support a child has particularly around the middle of their body known as the trunk and pelvis.

Occupational Therapy

We support children and young people who present functional difficulties impacting on their participation in everyday daily living activities (also known as occupations). We will work with children and their families to encourage independence or maximise the child's participation in activities of daily living that are important to them and to promote their health and wellbeing. We have a particular focus on a child's fine motor and motor co-ordination skills. Fine motor skills are the ability to control the smaller movement of the hands, fingers, and thumb. Motor co-ordination skills help the body to use multiple body parts to complete an action such as catching a ball or riding a bicycle. We also focus on a child's postural care needs to aid body alignment and a stable base to enable the performance of functional tasks.

Musculoskeletal service

We provide physiotherapy assessment and management of musculoskeletal conditions such as those relating to muscles, joints, bones, ligaments and tendons and pain related to a child's biomechanics (the way we move). We can help a child to manage symptoms and maximise independence through promoting joint range of movement, muscle strength, flexibility, and balance.

Functional Occupational Therapy Service

As part of the functional Occupational Therapy team service we offer:

Webinars giving information on Sensory awareness and Sensory Strategies for parents of early years foundation stage, primary and secondary aged children who attend a Salford setting.

Training to education staff who work in an early years foundation stage settings, primary schools or secondary schools within Salford:

Sensory Processing and Awareness

Advanced Sensory training (aimed at staff supporting a pupil with possible sensory processing difficulties who require more specific training)

Training for educational setting on specific topics such as:

Fine Motor Skills

Gross Motor Skills

Handwriting

Access to the webinars are available via the link.
You will be required to set up an account for accessing and booking onto the sessions via the Zipporah system. Then type in the search box: Sensory (and locate the relevant age group for the individual child you are attending for)

Coordination Matters Pack

Many children struggle with daily activities and may take longer to learn new skills. Children will make more progress if they practice these activities for a short time each day, rather than one long session each week. Some children may carry out the activities in the programme and no longer need a referral to the therapy team. This enables the team to provide a quality service to those children with an underlying coordination difficulty.

As part of our referral pathway if a child currently within 'early years' or 'key stage one' is referred for difficulties with coordination skills we are asking school/early years settings to have followed a term of activities as described in the 'Co-ordination Matters Pack'. The school complete a checklist for the areas in which the child has a difficulty. The checklists are completed initially and following one term of activities. The checklists will direct the school/early years settings to the relevant activities to be completed in the pack.

If concerns remain a referral can then be sent through to the team including the information from the coordination matters pack before we list them for a clinic appointment within the functional Occupational Therapy service.

Enhanced Occupational Therapy Service

We have a Team of Occupational Therapists who provide an enhanced therapy service which family's, Education providers and other services can buy into.

The Enhanced Occupational Therapy service can offer support through direct assessment and advice for children and young people with functional difficulties, including sensory processing needs. Offering the option for a holistic assessments that considers motor coordination, sensory and visual perception needs. Following individualised assessments specific advice or recommendations will be shared to target the child's individual needs. Therapy intervention can also be bought in. The service can be bought in on an individual basis or for multiple children by an individual, a school or organisation.

Additional input can be offered to professionals or schools for bespoke training packages, in addition to those offered through the Functional Occupational Therapy Service.

Enhanced Occupational Therapy input can be offered in the most appropriate setting for the individual child or young person, this may be a clinic, school or home environment.

Your Appointment - what to expect?

We mainly work in clinics across Salford or virtually through video technology. Depending on a child's needs we can visit them at home, in nursery or in school (mainstream and special school) as well.

Clinics are based at Swinton Gateway or Pendleton Gateway. There are Salford council operated pay and display carparks at both locations.
We request that a child is dressed appropriately for their appointment or we may not be able to carry out a full assessment. Please wear vests style top for upper body assessment, shorts that allow movement at the hip joints for lower body assessments and swimming costumes for hydrotherapy sessions. We also require bare feet at times during Physiotherapy assessments.

All children are assessed for their abilities and this helps to guide a child's therapy intervention and ensure it is personal to their needs. Therapy assessments may include:

Posture and balance

Motor development

Joint range of movement and muscle strength

Co-ordination and movement quality

Functional ability

Environmental assessments

Once an assessment is complete the therapist will discuss the findings with the child and their relevant adult/s and agree what we all want the child to gain from therapy (goals to work toward). A treatment plan will then be developed based on up to date evidence and research. This may consist of:

Advice and activities or exercises parents/ guardians can practice with their child. (Evidence suggests that repeating exercises at home regularly is an effective form of therapy)

Signposting to other services or resources available.

A therapy programme that can be carried out and home, nursery and/or school to help develop the child or young person's functional skills and abilities. (Training is offered to education staff to support their understanding of implementing therapy advice and programmes.)

Advice on different techniques or ways of doing activities.

Individual or group therapy sessions to address specific therapy goals.

Training and support to parents and education staff on management of the child's specific conditions and how to maximise their ability to participate in activities at home and school.

Advice on, or provision of specialist equipment or minor adaptations, to promote functional independence, mobility, participation in activities or to enable the parent or carers to support the young person with activities of daily living.

Advice on adapting the nursery or school environment to enable the young person to access the curriculum and school buildings.

Enhanced services

Enhanced Occupational Therapy is a commissioned service that can provide support for children and young people. The Enhanced Occupational Therapy service can provide bespoke individualised input depending on the needs of the child or young person.

Enhanced Occupational Therapy can offer support through direct assessment and advice for children and young people with functional difficulties, including sensory processing needs. Offering the option for a holistic assessments that considers motor coordination, sensory and visual perception needs. Following individualised assessments specific advice or recommendations will be shared to target the child's individual needs. Therapy intervention can also be commissioned.
The service can be commissioned on an individual basis or for multiple children by an individual, a school or organisation.
Additional input can be offered to professionals or schools for bespoke training packages, in addition to those offered through the Learning Support Service.

Enhanced Occupational Therapy input can be offered in the most appropriate settings for the individual child or young person, this may be a clinic, school or home environment.

Clinics are based at Swinton gateway or Pendleton gateway. There are Salford council operated pay and display carparks at both locations:

Swinton Gateway
100 Chorley Road
Swinton
M27 6BP

We are able to accept referrals for children and young people 0-16 years (0-19 in full time education or special school) who are registered with a Salford GP or who live in Salford. Our therapists are unable to routinely visit homes or schools outside of Salford. A clinic-based appointment can be offered as an alternative. Who can refer:

Self, parent, carer

GP

Health professional

Education and Social Care

The more information that you can provide with the referral will allow us to understand the child's needs and allocate them to the most appropriate part of the service.

Many children struggle with daily activities and movement skills and may take longer to learn new skills. Children will make more progress if they practice these activities for a short time each day, rather than one long session each week. Some children may carry out these activities and no longer need a referral to Physiotherapy or Occupational Therapy. Therefore if you are referring a child in Early Years or Key stage one, who does not have an underlying medical diagnosis that is contributing to their difficulties in completing functional activities, then please complete this checklist and the recommended activities prior to referral. We will require evidence of a completed checklist to accept the referral.

If you are referring a preschool child with delayed movement skills who does not display any altered muscle tone or have an underlying medical condition then it is important that they have the opportunity to practice these skills before a referral is made to Physiotherapy. GreaterSport and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) have produced the leaflets below to help with early year's movement development and school readiness. Further information can be found on the GMCA site.

Our musculoskeletal physiotherapy team accepts referrals for Children and young people from the age of 4 up to 16, who either live in Salford or who are registered with a Salford GP. This service accepts referrals from Consultants, GP's or Healthcare Professionals. This is a clinic-based service. How to refer:

GP's- via Electronic referral system to Paediatric Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy

Or Paediatric Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy

Parents- via phone

Professionals via referral form

Once we receive a referral a senior therapist will triage it to the best service for the child. This triage process is based on the information provided in the referral, so it is important we get as much relevant information as possible including up-to date contact details for a child's next of kin. The child will then be allocated to a specialist therapist and an appointment will either be sent out through the post or we will contact you by telephone.

NHS website - This NHS leaflet provided answer to common questions on lower limb concerns in children such as walking patterns.
Head turning preference and Plagiocephaly Promoting physical development lying to sitting
Flat feet in children - this is not a concern if an arch forms when your child stands on tiptoe and usually correct themselves by the time a child is 6 years

Intoeing gait - child's feet turn in when walking or running. This is often from the position of the hips and usually corrects itself by the age of 8 years. For further information on this please use the link below:
Symptomatic Hypermobility Osgood-Schlatters Disease Standing frames safety and maintenance Standing frames Why is postural management do important

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Children's Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy Team :: Northern Care Alliance

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We provide a safe, high quality Specialist Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy service which aims to empower children and young people of Salford to reach their full potential.

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MLCO Speech and Language Therapy Padlet 

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MLCO Speech and Language Therapy Padlet 

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RHOSEY - Rodney House Outreach Service for Early Years 

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RHOSEY - Rodney House Outreach Service for Early Years 

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Rodney House Specialist Support School - RHOSEY Outreach

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Rodney House provides an outreach service to families and settings of children with SEND aged 0-5 across the city.

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Lancasterian Outreach and Inclusion Service (LOIS) - Equipment 

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Lancasterian Outreach and Inclusion Service (LOIS) - Equipment 

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LOIS provides advice, support and training to mainstream schools in Manchester to enable them to effectively meet the needs of pupils with medical needs and physical disabilities aged 4-16 in school. LOIS offers Moving and Handling training to all Manchester settings.

Please be advised, LOIS are unable to support children with a primary diagnosis of Autism.

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KIDS - Kids Independently Developing Skills

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KIDS stands for Kids Independently Developing Skills and the information on this site is designed to help children and young people be as independent as possible in all aspects of daily living. Information has been provided by Health Professionals in Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
Helping children and y…

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Children learn about the world around them through play, and families can often learn a lot about their child's needs through use of specialist toys. They can also encourage learning, improve relaxation, give enjoyment and distract from pain.

87% of families report the specialist toys improved relationships.
82% of parents had a better understanding of their child's needs.
77% enjoyed quality time as a family though play with appropriate toys

There are different categories of play pods to choose from, depending on the child's age, physical and learning abilities, and medical needs.

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Newlife offers the free loan of specialist toys like Play Therapy Pods to families who have disabled and terminally ill children.

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making sense of sensory behaviour sensory approach