I've successfully used my speedlite with my Elinchrom stobes.
How are you triggering the various flashes?
There are two methods I've use, both of which work
First put the speedlite in manual and set the required power, then either
1) Put the speedlite on the hot shoe, or on a hot shoe extension cable of using it off camera. Set the stobes to fire from the slave cell & the flash from the speedlite with trigger the strobes... or
2) Fit a radio trigger to the pc sync socket of the speedlite & then you can trigger all the flashes remotely.
If you've been trying to trigger the speedlite with an optical slave, the majority of them dont work with Canon speedlite - you need specially adapted ones
http://pixsylated.com/blog/canon-spe...ptical-slaves/
Hope that helps