Parent and child interaction (PCI) pathway

What is the parent and child interaction (PCI) pathway?

This pathway aims to support children’s speech, language and communication skills by coaching parents in the use of effective strategies to use in their interactions with their child.

PCI workshop

When your child is referred to the pathway you will receive a letter with a link to a video. You need to watch the video and try the strategies before coming to meet with the speech and language therapist.

You will be sent an appointment once your child reaches the top of the waiting list.

You will then be offered 3 face to face appointments. These might be weekly or may be spread further apart if that works better. In these sessions the speech and language therapist will talk to you about the strategies you have used, discussing which have worked and give you advice and support about how to keep doing them.

What happens during the appointment?

If it’s appropriate the speech and language therapist might record a short video of you and your child playing and use this video to give you further suggestions on things to work on at home. Please do not worry if you do not want to do the video there is no pressure to do this.

The speech and language therapist will also observe your child, interact with them and do some very informal assessment if appropriate. We hope that this will help you to feel confident, to keep using the strategies at home.

What happens next?

There will usually be a review appointment if needed after the 3^rd session. You will receive a report with a summary of the episode of care and some targets to continue to be working on at home. If your child attends a nursery setting a copy of the report can be sent to them so they can support your child in nursery too.

This will complete the episode of care and if your child is likely to need further speech and language therapy support details will be given about how and when to access this.