SEND Caseworker

Hull City Council; Hull and East Yorkshire; On-site; GBP 34,000 - 37,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

LGPS pension

Annual leave 23 days

Career development

Supportive culture

Job summary

Hull City Council is seeking an experienced SEND/EHC Caseworker to coordinate the Education Health and Care processes for children and young people up to age 25. You will work across education, health and social care to draft EHCPs, arrange reviews and secure appropriate placements.

You will manage complex cases under tight deadlines, maintain robust records and support families through the decision-making process with professionals.

Responsibilities

• Co-ordinate the Education Health and Care (EHC) assessment and review process within statutory timescales.
• Draft statutory EHCPs for children and young people based on EHC needs assessments or reviews.
• Facilitate suitable educational placements and negotiate with schools and agencies when needed.
• Maintain accurate case records in line with policies and performance standards.
• Lead meetings such as Annual Reviews, Vulnerable Placement Meetings and multi-agency meetings.
• Engage parents, young people and professionals to ensure collaborative decision-making.
• Provide advice on EHCP procedures and ensure information is accessible to families.

Job description

To provide a proactive casework management and service that is responsive, and customer focussed, for children, young people and their families with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and in accordance with the requirements of the Children Families Act 2014 and SEN Code of Practice 2015.

To co-ordinate, facilitate and process the statutory Education Health and Care (EHC) process for all agreed EHC assessments, liaising and interfacing throughout with families, young people and professionals as required to ensure and maintain good multi-agency working.

To facilitate and co-ordinate the statutory EHC annual review process.

Draft statutory Education Health Care plans (EHCP) for children and young people as a result of EHC needs assessments or annual review amendments.

To ensure that children and young people have appropriate support, resources and placements in schools or other educational settings to enable them to achieve positive learning and developmental outcomes.

To facilitate and engage in partnership working to agree solutions to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND in a creative and outcome focused way.

To ensure effective co-production, co-planning and collaborative working takes place with parents, young people, and other professionals.

To ensure effective arrangements are in place for young adults with high needs to transition into adulthood.

To maintain electronic and paper records in accordance with service standards ensuring accurate case recording of all aspects of the EHC process.

The post holder will need to work city wide, under pressure managing conflicting priorities within tight timescales and speedily making decisions on complex and challenging cases.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1. To promote and safeguard the welfare of children, young people acting as the person responsible to co-ordinate support throughout the SEND process to ensure that good outcomes are achieved and to progress safeguarding concerns in line with policy and procedure.
2. To manage a defined EHC caseload facilitating and coordinating the EHC assessment and review process for children and young people (0-25-year-olds) within statutory timescales, including where appropriate, the planning for a young person's transition to adult life. This may include complex cases where there are profound and multiple disabilities or where children are subject to child protection proceedings or are looked after by the local authority.
3. To work in partnership with children, young people, families and professional agencies from education, health, social care and the third sector, through constructing initial drafts to producing final EHCP's which are led by the child or young person's needs to achieve stated objectives and aspirations.
4. As part of the review process, agree amendments to plans against evidenced changes and, where indicated, identify if a plan should be discontinued.
5. Through supervision processes alert management to any issues that could impact on the service or personal performance.
6. Work in partnership with parents and ensure that children, young people and their families are fully involved in the assessment and decision-making process and ensure that information, advice and support on EHCP and short break procedures, assessments and provisions is available.
7. Oversee the allocation of children and young people to suitable educational placements or provision including admissions into early years settings, mainstream, special and Independent Schools and Colleges as deemed appropriate. Undertake complex negotiations with parents, Head teachers and agencies where cases are complex in nature.
8. Be responsible for the actions arising from EHC plan meetings and from the Authority's Decision-Making Panel's, ensuring the appropriate completion of case records and that actions are carried out in a timely manner.
9. Chair and attend identified meetings as required such as Annual Reviews, Vulnerable Placement Meetings, Next Steps Meetings, and multi-agency meetings. This may include challenging organisations and senior staff in school, health and social care settings about the provision and quality of services.
10. To attend and support mediation meetings as required.
11. Engage in partnership working to find ways of meeting the needs of children and young people in a creative, outcome focused way whilst ensuring the principles of value for money.
12. Remain well informed and knowledgeable regarding services available on the Local Offer to support families to make informed decisions.
13. To manage the child's, young person's, and family's expectations of service provision, mediating problems and issues as they arise.
14. Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of changes in legislation and case law relating to SEND. Provide advice to senior managers regarding amendments required to internal documents and procedures and be able to convey these changes to parents and relevant professionals.
15. Ensure all records, reports and computer systems are maintained and updated in line with HCC and service policies, procedures, and performance standards.
16. Contribute to the maintenance / retrieval of accurate, up to date information on service data bases, monitoring systems case management systems. Ensure up to date information is available for use by senior managers with regard to monitoring SEND / trends/ service performance and standards etc.
17. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated legislation places responsibilities for health and safety on Hull City Council, as your employer and you as an employee of the council. In addition to the Councils overall duties, the post holder has personal responsibility for their own health, safety and wellbeing and that of other employees; additional and more specific responsibilities are identified in the Council's Corporate HS policy.

£33,673.00 - £36,581.00

Job Classifications:

3- Not Politically Restricted - Designated As Not Politically Sensitive (Politically Restricted Posts), 5- Enhanced Childrens Barring List - (Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)), 9- Enhanced (Child Adult Workforce) - (Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)), Casual - (Travel Allowance Policy), No - (Childcare Disqualification Requirement), No - (Statutory Post), OSP - Other Support Staff (School WorkForce Census)

Benefits of Working of Hull City Council:

• A competitive salary
• An excellent pension through the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
• Initially 23 days annual leave depending on length of service. You will also get eight public holidays per year, and three additional days off, one in May/August and one during the Christmas/New year period
• Career development and learning experiences from a range of training courses and learning methods
• Supportive and forward-thinking culture
• Great career development opportunities