SEND Engagement and Participation Officer

at  London Borough of Bexley

ABOUT US

Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites.

SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS TEAM

Are you passionate about ensuring children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities get they support they need? Are you skilled and experienced in working with children and young people who have special educational needs and disabilities to ensure their voices are heard?
Are you great at communicating and liaising with a wide range of partners/education settings in and out of borough and stake holders who all support our children and young people with special educational needs?
If so, we have an exciting opportunity for a SEND Participation and Engagement Officer to join our statutory SEN team and support us with fulfilling our statutory duties such as ensuring genuine co-production takes place and the voice of the child influences and shapes services for children and young people across the Local Area SEND Partnership.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

We are looking for an enthusiastic and driven person to support the delivery of Bexley Local Area SEND Partnership’s vision and strategic priorities as set out in the SEND and PFA Strategy and Local Area SEND Priority Action Plan.
You will have experienced working directly with children and young people who have special educational needs and disabilities with the ability to plan, design and deliver various participation and engagement events.
You will have the ability to obtain children and young people’s feedback and act as a key point of contact for projects requiring the engagement of young people. You will be able to produce high-quality written proposals, reports, and other written materials.
For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached.
Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).
This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.

The SEND Participation and Engagement Officer will arrange and deliver a variety of engagement activities to ensure that the voices of children and young people, who have special educational need and disabilities, are heard and understood and used to shape the design and delivery of SEND services across Bexley Local Area.
The SEND Participation and Engagement Officer will work throughout Bexley Local Area and with children and young people in schools, colleges and other groups of young people to find out what’s important to them and how they want to see Education, Health and Social Care services for children and young people with SEND change.
The SEND Participation and Engagement Officer will also establish and support a young person’s forum. This forum will meet regularly to provide advice, input and ideas for change to a range of different projects, events, policies and activities. Meetings will be face-to-face and will be a mixture of work, learning and socialising.
For an informal discussion about the role please contact
Wendy Vincent, Head of SEND, 0203-045-3543, wendy.vincent@bexley.gov.uk
We will offer you in return a package that includes a competitive salary, an excellent pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays. For more information on the benefits package on offer please refer to the Candidate Information document attached.
We reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date.