A reunion is taking place in Greenwich to celebrate 20 years of helping youngsters in the area with speech and language delays.

Families whose children attended the ICAN programme at Pound Park Nursery in Charlton or Mulgrave Primary School in Woolwich over the past two decades are invited to the giant catch-up in October.

ICAN is a children’s communication charity whose mission is that no child should be left out of left behind because of a difficulty speaking or understanding.

Organisers estimate that some 1,250 youngsters have passed through ICAN since the innovative speech and language scheme was launched in Greenwich in 1998 with the aim of helping kids who struggle to communicate.

Now they are hoping to get in touch with as many of their former pupils and families as possible to invite them to the special reunion to mark the contribution ICAN has made to the borough.

The event is taking place on October 11 between 5pm and 7.30pm at Mulgrave Primary School in Rectory Place, Woolwich.

Families of former or current ICAN pupils should get in touch via ican20thanniversary@gmail.com to save places at the reunion.

The ICAN programme is a three-month intensive scheme supporting children to learn basic vocabulary and improve their communication skills.

This takes place in group and individual sessions and involves a great deal of repetition, as well as support for everyday situations in the classroom and at home.

Children who are about to turn three can be referred for a place, if appropriate, at an ICAN nursery by their Oxleas NHS Speech and Language Therapist.

Each child on the programme, funded by The Royal Borough of Greenwich and supported by the Oxleas NHS Speech and Language therapy team, works towards individual targets written by the speech and language therapists and agreed with parents.

Lauren Adamson, Specialist Speech and Language Therapist at Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We’re incredibly proud of what ICAN has achieved since its launch in Greenwich in 1998.

“We’re hoping as many of our former students and their families as possible can get together in one place to help celebrate our milestone.

“But we’re also eager to use the anniversary to get word out about what ICAN and Speech and Language Therapy can do to help families who may have children experiencing a speech and language delay.

“It can be incredibly frustrating and frightening for families when a child’s language and communication skills don’t develop as they might expect.”