Early Years Professional Resource Group (PRG)
Important Process Update
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we regularly review our processes and listen carefully to feedback from the early years sector. Through provider surveys, monitoring meetings and ongoing conversations with practitioners, we recognise that while the current model is supporting positive outcomes for many children and families, there are opportunities to make the process simpler and more responsive.
PRG Briefing Link for information on what is changing from September 2026.
Children with complex needs will often have many agencies involved with their care and their education journey. The Early Years Professional Resource Group (EY PRG) ensures that Early Years providers, children and their families, have access to a bespoke offer to meet their needs during the Early Years phase of their education by a range of professionals and services.
Requests for support can be made by Early Years Providers and on occasion by other professionals using this request form (TBA 3rd August 2026).
Frequency and Attendance
The groups meet once a term (6 times per year) in each of the 12 districts of Kent. The meetings are attended by representatives from the following services:
A core membership of;
- SENIF Finance Team
- Portage Manager / Officer
- Specialist Teaching & Learning Service Teachers (STLS)
- Senior Early Years Quality Adviser
- SEND Support & Inclusion Practitioner
- EY Outreach Manager
- Health Visiting Team
- Family Hubs
- Kent Educational Psychologist Service
- Children Therapies - Speech & Language
- SENIF Monitoring Officer
Other participants could also include;
- SEND Support & Inclusion Manager (Early Years)
- EYC Quality Manager
- EY Childminding Adviser
- EY SEND Support & Inclusion County Co-ordinator
- Sensory & PD Specialist Teachers
- Other professionals as appropriate
Aims
The aim of the meetings are to:
- be confident that Early Years Provisions have accessed training and implemented advice and strategies before requests are brought to the meeting.
- plan educational support, for children attending Early Years Provisions from professionals, at different points, in a child’s education journey.
- make decisions about the most appropriate interventions and support that can be offered and when; depending on capacity, interventions may not be able to start straight away but waiting time should be minimal, waiting no longer than six weeks (excluding half terms and holidays) for interventions to start, wherever possible.
- make decisions around future interventions to support transition
- ensure that all professional interventions will be time limited but not exceeding a maximum of two terms, wherever possible.
- ensure that following interventions, Early Years Provisions have embedded the advice and strategies provided, before any further support is considered.
Requests and Outcomes
Requests can made by Early Years Providers. Requests should be completed when Providers feel they need additional support beyond what has already been implemented and evidenced to be having minimal impact on the child's development and progress.
Requests can be made for individual children. It will be considered at the PRG whether the focuses of the support being requested for a number of children from the same provider in the same term could be offered as a cohort intervention. This will depend on attendance times and the similarity of the support requested.
This is a continuous process; there are no deadlines. Early Years Providers complete the request form when they feel they need to request additional support and the request will be added to the next district meeting’s agenda
Outcomes of the meeting will be shared with Early Years Providers shortly after the meeting. This will be by email. The nominated service will then make initial contact to discuss more specific arrangements of the intervention.
Exceptional Discussions
Arrangements are in place for children to be considered outside of the termly district EY PRG meetings in certain instances, if the request for support is deemed urgent and cannot wait until the next meeting which will be highlighted through the triaging process after the request has been made. It will be considered via an exceptional discussion meeting which takes place weekly.
Below is further supporting information or contact eyprg@kent.gov.uk
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