Ei SMART Early Assessment & Early Intervention Course

Building confident clinicians. Supporting confident parents.
Improving outcomes in early intervention for babies and families.

Advances in early detection mean that babies at increased risk of neurodevelopmental challenges can be identified earlier than ever before.

But early identification must be matched by skilled, timely and effective early intervention.

The Ei SMART Early Assessment & Early Intervention Course is built around the Ei SMART clinical reasoning framework and helps therapists bring together the evidence across Sensory, Motor, Attention & Regulation and Relationships, working Together with parents to understand the whole baby and translate assessment into individualised, meaningful intervention.

Developed by clinicians, together with parents with lived experience, world renowned researchers and academics, Ei SMART is grounded in the realities of delivering early intervention to babies and families in neonatal, hospital and community settings.

Ei SMART provides multidisciplinary teams with a shared clinical reasoning framework for understanding the whole baby, bringing professional expertise together and working in co-production with parents.

Knowing the evidence is only the beginning. Ei SMART helps clinicians put it into practice.

A Shared Framework: ‘see’ the Whole Baby TOGETHER with the family

A baby’s development is shaped by the continuous interaction between movement, sensory experiences, attention and emotional regulation, communication and relationships, as well as their opportunities to learn and participate in the world around them.Using the Ei SMART clinical reasoning process therapists learn to integrate skilled observation and assessment with evidence, clinical expertise and family priorities.

Clinicians learn to start with the baby’s strengths, interests and emerging abilities, before considering where they may benefit from additional support.

Rather than focusing on a diagnosis or individual area of difficulty, clinicians learn to understand the baby as a whole and identify where support can make the greatest difference to their ability to engage, learn, move, communicate and participate.

From assessment to better outcomes

The course develops knowledge of typical and atypical infant development alongside neurological, developmental and neurobehavioural assessment and discusses how the GMA, HINE, Brazelton and others, alongside skilled observation of the developing infant informs effective intervention.

You will learn how to use the Ei SMART lens to develop your clinical reasoning skills to interpret what you see, identify strengths and developmental needs, understand what may be influencing a baby’s development and decide – together with parents – what to prioritise and why.

No one mode of early intervention works for every baby or family. Ei SMART brings together a multimodal, evidence-based framework, equipping clinicians and parents to make informed, individualised decisions about what this baby and this family need to thrive.

40 Hours of Specialist training for physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists

Participants observe, assess, reason, intervene, reflect and adapt through clinical sessions, workshops, case discussion and treatment planning.

This enables clinicians to move beyond knowing what the evidence says to developing the skills and clinical reasoning required to apply it in practice.

Complete 40 hours of specialist training and become an Ei SMART-trained practitioner, equipped to apply the Ei SMART clinical reasoning framework within your own practice.

Feedback: “The more I learned about Ei SMART, the more I started to feel as though this approach was the ‘missing link’ to delivery of multidisciplinary therapeutic services to young children… I was witness to the transformative nature of the approach during the 3-day intensive.” NHS Occupational Therapist following Ei SMART training

“The Ei SMART training has made me a different and better therapist and I use learning from Ei SMART every day.” Speech & Language Therapist, NHS Trust

Co-production with parents

Parents are not an addition to early intervention. They are central to it.

Ei SMART was developed in the UK with parents, bringing families’ lived experience together with frontline clinical expertise.

Parents bring expertise that no assessment can provide: knowledge of their baby, their family, their priorities and the realities of everyday life.

Co-production is therefore not an additional module within Ei SMART. It is fundamental to the framework and to the way intervention is planned and delivered.

Clinicians learn to recognise and value this expertise, understand family priorities, agree meaningful goals together and develop intervention that is appropriate for the baby and achievable within family life.

Not intervention delivered to families. Intervention developed with them.

By helping parents understand their baby’s strengths and developmental needs, and the reasons behind intervention, Ei SMART has been shown to increase parental knowledge, confidence and belief in their own ability to support their child’s development.

A UCL pilot study in collaboration with University College London exploring parents’ experiences of participating with their babies in the Ei SMART course found increased parental confidence and understanding of how to support their infant’s development following participation.

Supporting parents as well as professionals

What happens in the other 23 hours?

A therapy appointment represents only a small part of a baby’s life.

Ei SMART helps therapists work with parents to identify developmental opportunities within everyday interactions, play and learning, movement, positioning, communication, routines and relationships.

This isn’t about giving parents more therapy exercises to squeeze into an already busy day.

It is about helping parents understand their baby’s development and use ordinary experiences to support learning, participation and emerging skills.

Families attending Ei SMART courses describe incorporating intervention into everyday life so that it becomes manageable rather than another additional thing to do.

The goal isn’t to give families ‘therapy’ to do. It’s to build developmental opportunities into everyday life and activities.

For services, this means professional expertise can extend beyond the direct therapy appointment by building parents’ knowledge and confidence to support their baby’s development between contacts.

Award winning Impact for professionals and services

Ei SMART training is designed to strengthen individual clinical skills while helping multidisciplinary teams develop a shared approach to early intervention.

100% of surveyed course participants reported that they felt they would be both more effective and more efficient at work as a result of the training.

Feedback following training also describes increased professional confidence, greater consistency and shared language, stronger multidisciplinary working and improved collaboration with families.

Lucy and Sara won best poster at the annual national AHP study day 2026 following implementation of Ei SMARTclinics in their service in Cornwall. Their incredible work was further recognised by being accepted for presentation at the EACD conference, Galway 2026.

Another example of great work presented at EACD 2026

Building workforce capability

Training colleagues together can help services establish a shared approach to early intervention across disciplines, while retaining the specialist expertise of each profession.
Ei SMART training aims to support:
• confident clinicians with clear evidence based early assessment and intervention skills
• shared clinical reasoning and language across multidisciplinary teams
• holistic intervention across interconnected areas of infant development
• genuine co-production and stronger partnerships with families
• parents who feel more knowledgeable, confident and supported in understanding their baby’s development
• greater consistency of approach across a service
• improved multidisciplinary communication and collaborative decision-making

UK-developed. Internationally relevant

Ei SMART resources are now used across 20+ countries, with thousands of professionals and families introduced to the Ei SMART network worldwide.

The Ei SMART approach has also been referenced in both assessment and intervention within the NHS England Commissioning Framework for Children and Young People with Cerebral Palsy.

NHS England » Commissioning framework for children and young people with cerebral palsy

Ei SMART is not just about generating new evidence, it is about applying existing evidence wisely and contextually to achieve meaningful, real-world impact.”
Dr Anna Basu, Clinical Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Neurologist

Experienced clinical leadership

The course is led by Leaders in the Field – Betty Hutchon and Christine Barber and the Ei SMART tutor team, including renowned therapists, Elaine Mc Mahon and Gosia Jon-Dare. The team brings decades of specialist clinical experience working directly with babies, children and families alongside extensive national and international teaching experience.

You can expect expert knowledge in neonatal neurodevelopment, infant assessment, paediatric neurology, cerebral palsy and early intervention.

Participants learn not only the evidence, but the clinical reasoning that comes from years of putting it into practice.

Attending or hosting the Ei SMART baby course

Ei SMART Certification

Certificates issued following completion of the full 40 hours:

Ei SMART-trained Practitioner
• Early Assessment & Early Intervention

This certification will open possibilities to progress to –

Ei SMART Accredited Practitioner
Ei SMART Accredited Service
Ei SMART Tutor

See the whole baby. Work together with parents. Turn evidence into better outcomes for babies

Ei SMART – helping parents support their baby’s ability to engage, play and learn, move, communicate and participate in everyday activities