Charity supports toddler language development

Toddlers who visit Grimsby hospital will now be better supported thanks to hospital charity the Health Tree Foundation.

As part of its “Circle of Wishes” project, the Health Tree Foundation encourages staff, patients and relatives to submit a wish to use charitable funds for something new in the hospital or out in the community.

Speech therapist Eleanor Whitfield made a wish to the charity for new resources for supporting language development in paediatrics.

The team at the hospital work with children from the ages of three who have either a language delay or a language disorder.

They use pictures with the children to show different words, images and colours. Previously the team used to print sheets for each child in black and white and colour in any pictures if they had the time.

They applied to the Health Tree Foundation for “Pictoys”, which are unique resources that are part pictures and part toys. They are a series of interactive resources that are used in supporting children with their sentence structure.

Eleanor said: “We’ve not had them for very long and they’ve already been used so much by our children. They are helping the children with their word order, structure and helping them to build on their vocabulary.

“They are up to date, funky and the kids just love them.

“We are really grateful to the Health Tree Foundation for helping us to improve the experience for our patients.”

Partnerships manager for the Health Tree Foundation Victoria Winterton said: “The Pictoys are a really great resource and we are so happy to have been able to support the team. The team are so passionate about looking after their patients and anything we can do to help is a real honour.”

The Pictoys were purchased from the Little Lives fund within the Health Tree Foundation. Little Lives is the - Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust’s funding zone for family services. If you would like to donate to our Little Lives fund to help support wishes like this in the future you can donate here and just write “Little Lives” in the notes box http://campaign.justgiving.com/charity/nlagcharitablefunds/bigthankyou

Alternatively you can send a cheque to the hospital payable to “The Health Tree Foundation” with “Little Lives” written on the back of the cheque.