The East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Children’s Services have been rated GOOD by Ofsted following our recent ILACS inspection. Since the last inspection in 2019, the leadership team has made significant and sustained changes in all of the practice and leadership areas identified for improvement. Through extensive engagement with external partners and scrutineers, the improvements in the service mean that children and young people in East Riding receive a timely and effective response and intervention when they need it. Senior leaders and councillors are clear about what their strengths are and what still needs to be improved in service delivery, and their self-evaluation is accurate.

They have ambitious plans and have secured significant investment to develop their services further as part of their continuous improvement journey. Senior leaders lead by example, and this has supported practitioners to embed the relational model of practice with the families they work with

A great and exciting opportunity has arisen within the Participation, Innovation, and Improvement portfolio for an experienced social worker/manager to join the service in the role of Designated Social Care Lead for SEND. This role forms part of our continued improvement activity in driving strength based, relational and collaborative practice in our work with children, young people and their networks.

This role will strategically lead in framing and developing social care elements of the SEND strategy across the local authority, in compliance with legislative requirements of the SEND Code of Practice (2015). The role will directly inform and influence the direction of wider SEND services through intelligence and insight. The leader will have in-depth knowledge and understanding of both social care operations and the SEND reforms agenda and will identify areas where social care is weak or noncompliant with the SEND Code of Practice - generating solutions and implementing strategies and plans to address this - aligning these to social care’s operational and business plans and statutory obligations.

Key to success will be the ability of this leader to negotiate with and influence others, build and nurture effective partnerships, working collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders across the local authority and exploiting opportunities for co-production. The role will act as the regional and national interface, representing the local authority social care at key regional and national events, and will be a source of expert professional advice on SEND reforms relating to social care within the county.

Key responsibilities include:

• A strategic role accountable for developing strategies, action plans and processes which support and enable the SEND reforms agenda to become embedded within social care operations and practice.
• Contributing to and influencing SEND organisational design and assisting in the development of 0-25 Children & Young People with Disabilities Service and its policies.
• Establishing and leading a network of social care SEND ‘champions’ and link workers.
• Facilitating and overseeing the implementation of the SEND agenda within social care through this network and gathering insight and intelligence from them and other groups such as the parent carer forum to inform future planning.
• Responsibility for developing social care aspects of the Local Offer that provide relevant advice and information and meet all legislative requirements.
• Analysing complex and varied work strands across functions, services and agencies in order to identify and exploit opportunities for co-production and integrated working between social care, health and education to progress SEND reforms agenda.
• Working collaboratively with social care directors and managers to ensure social care meet statutory responsibilities under the Children & Families Act (2014) and Care Act (2014), and to drive forward organisational culture change aligned to the SEND reforms.
• Constructively challenging practice, systems, processes and protocols to enhance SEND reform compliance as part of this collaboration.
• Responsibility for framing social care elements of the local authority’s self-evaluation process to ensure readiness for SEND Ofsted & CQC Inspections.
• Involvement in and initiation of varied multi-stakeholder projects and work streams. Themes include: participation and engagement, person-centred approaches, joint working initiatives, outcomes frameworks, operational function design, IT systems connectivity, EHC processes, quality assurance, joint commissioning, Early Years,
• Preparing for Adulthood, the Local Offer. Contributing to social care workforce development by formulating programme of blended learning/training relating to the SEND reforms across varied audience profile and functions.

This post is part of a wider commitment by the Children, Families and Schools Directorate to support the practice system to deliver impact and focused outcomes for our children, young people and their networks via building a sustainable foundation of support to our holistic workforce. This is a great opportunity to be part of an aspirational and forward-thinking Portfolio with a priority of supporting those children, young people and their networks.

The Office Base for this role will be County Hall, Beverley although will work across the East Riding of Yorkshire footprint alongside the Heads of Service within the service. Working arrangements will be hybrid and working days are Monday to Friday.

Our model

‘You can, I can, We can’

We have created a bespoke practice model that reflects and connects our vision, our value base and our behaviour as one East Riding of Yorkshire approach to working with children, young people and their families, which is nurtured and grown from within East Riding of Yorkshire Children, Families and Schools Directorate and owned by our workforce.

We remain committed to Signs of Safety as a practice framework, but this will be set within a much wider, values based, model of practice that clearly connects Signs of Safety much more clearly with the East Riding value base, and our overall approach to making and sustaining relationships with children, families, and communities.

Without a well embedded model, there is nothing to centre our practice on to ensure that, while the work may be different, all our teams are grounded in the same values, beliefs, theories, and approaches. Having a well-developed practice model helps to create a common language for the service and enables everyone to understand how we go about doing the right things, in the right way and for the right reasons for children and their families.

The right candidate:

You will contribute to the Quality of Practice agenda within the Directorate to help embed and promote a culture that leads to high quality and impact focused outcomes for children, young people and their families in East Riding of Yorkshire.

You will be required to work with service leads, front line managers and front-line practitioners to agreed outcome focused requirements in driving up practice across CYPSSS.

You will demonstrate good experience of front-line practice, within a children’s social work service with an ability to identify what good practice looks like.

You will have advanced working knowledge of childcare legislative framework, strength based and restorative based approaches, as well as relational based practice.

You will have great attention to detail and the ability to interrogate and analyse complex information with good accuracy, including an ability to critically evaluate children and young people’s lived experience so that support can be provided to ensure interventions are outcome and impacted focused.

You will need to be social work qualified and have strong experience of social work practice and experience of developing others, as well as a solid understanding of SEND practice related matters.

We are a small team and positive relationships are valued. You will also be working with the teams across our service and therefore, it is essential that the post holder is able to work effectively with others with a flexible and adaptable approach in a relational based approach.

You will be able to demonstrate a high level of motivation and the ability to work independently, with skills in working within timescales and with conflicting priorities.

If you are meet all of these qualities, have the right value base, and are an innovative leader, then what are you waiting for? Apply now and make a difference.