Education Navigator - Integrated Front Door

Cheshire East Council; Crewe; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 48,000; Full time

Job summary

Cheshire East Council seeks an Education Navigator to bridge education and safeguarding, ensuring vulnerable children receive timely support. You will collaborate with education providers, social care, health and policing to share information and drive positive outcomes for children.

The role focuses on safeguarding, information sharing, and partnership working to protect at-risk children and help them access education. You will contribute to planning and decision-making across agencies.

Qualifications

• Experience with children’s services or schools.
• Strong safeguarding knowledge and practice.
• Ability to assess risk and make professional judgments.
• Excellent communication with diverse professionals.
• Collaborative approach to improve outcomes.
• Resilience and initiative to help vulnerable children.

Responsibilities

• Act as main link between education providers and the Front Door Service.
• Support safeguarding decisions through information sharing and professional advice.
• Contribute to child protection meetings, safety planning and risk assessment processes.
• Provide specialist guidance to schools on safeguarding and child protection matters.
• Help ensure vulnerable children, including those missing education or with SEND, receive appropriate support and protection.
• Build strong partnerships across education, social care, health and police services to improve outcomes for children and families.

Skills

Safeguarding knowledge

Information sharing

Multi-agency collaboration

Communication skills

Risk assessment

Resilience

Education

Degree in education

Background in social care

Job description

Education Navigator - Integrated Front Door

We are seeking an experienced and passionate Education Navigator to join the Integrated Front Door Service. This is an exciting opportunity to act as the bridge between education and safeguarding services, supporting vulnerable children and young people through effective partnership working, specialist advice, and information sharing. Your work will help ensure that children at risk receive the right support, at the right time, to stay safe and achieve their potential.

About us

At Cheshire East Council we are resident, and partner focused with a vision to enable prosperity and wellbeing for all. People really are at the heart of everything we do and that starts with our incredible workforce. We promote a culture of high performance where people can aspire, thrive and flourish, where we strive to deliver best value in everything we do.

For us, success isn't just about what we achieve, but how we achieve it together. We promote curiosity, excellence, innovation and continuous improvement.

We are values led and committed to wellbeing and inclusion for all, where our employees co-created our values of drive, integrity, respect and collaboration which inform all that we do.

We are proud to work for Cheshire East Council and believe you would be too!

Join us on a meaningful journey in Children's Social Care at Cheshire East Council

We're on a meaningful journey in Children's Social Care and we'd love for you to be part of it. Joining us means becoming part of a supportive, forward-thinking team that's passionate about making a real difference in the lives of children and young people. Everything we do is about putting them first, helping them grow, thrive and reach their full potential so they can build brighter futures.

If this sounds like the kind of impact you want to make, we'd be delighted to hear from you. Come and join us in shaping positive change for our young people.

About the role:

As an Education Navigator you will play a vital role in safeguarding vulnerable children and young people. Acting as the key link between education providers and safeguarding professionals, you will ensure that critical information is shared effectively, support multi-agency decision-making, and help develop plans that protect children at risk of harm. Working closely with colleagues across education, social care, health and policing, you will use your expertise to champion positive outcomes for children, ensuring they are safe, supported and able to access their education.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as the main link between education providers and the Integrated Front Door Service.
• Support multi-agency safeguarding decisions through information sharing and professional advice.
• Contribute to child protection meetings, safety planning and risk assessment processes.
• Provide specialist guidance to schools and education settings on safeguarding and child protection matters.
• Help ensure vulnerable children, including those missing education, electively home educated or with SEND, receive appropriate support and protection.
• Build strong partnerships across education, social care, health and police services to improve outcomes for children and families

This is just a snapshot of some of the exciting things you'll be doing in the role, to find out more about the other key responsibilities of the role please view the attached job description.

About you:

You will be a skilled safeguarding or education professional with experience of supporting vulnerable children and young people and working collaboratively across agencies. Confident in building relationships, sharing complex information and influencing positive outcomes, you will be passionate about ensuring children are safe, supported and able to access education.

• Experience working with children's services, schools, or other education providers.
• Strong knowledge of safeguarding and child protection legislation and practice.
• The ability to assess risk, analyse information and make sound professional judgements.
• Excellent communication skills and the confidence to work with a wide range of professionals and partners.
• A collaborative approach and the ability to build effective working relationships.
• Resilience, initiative and a commitment to improving outcomes for vulnerable children and young people.
• A relevant degree-level qualification or professional background in education, social care or a related field.