Welcome to Somerset Council
Thank you for your interest in the position of Head of SEND Reform.
Nothing is more important at Somerset Council than protecting and supporting our 110,512 children and young people, ensuring they lead healthy, successful lives.
You’ll already know the enormity of the task, and the breadth of the work involved. Ensuring vulnerable children have a safe and loving home, delivering innovative special education needs programmes, joining up national social care reforms through locality working, wrapped around schools.
Prevention is key, which is why we focus on supporting the families of children and young people at risk of coming into care, and why we are building our capacity to help those children in our care to go home whenever it is safe to do so.
Your days will be busy, but never dull and always rewarding. And you’ll never be alone. You’ll have an experienced management team to support you, to advise, and who’ll always have your back. You’ll be working with a dedicated, professional workforce who share the same purpose - to improve the lives of children and families in Somerset.
And then there’s the many partners and stakeholders we work with. The school and setting staff, parents and carers, our NHS colleagues, Public Health nursing, and community, faith and voluntary groups, all ambitious for the children in our care, and proud of their achievements.
We do of course face many challenges. This role is not for the faint hearted. Because of the level of need in our communities. The number of children with an Education, Health and Care Plan has doubled in five years, adding pressure to budgets and school capacity. In response to the Education White Paper, we have an emerging SEND Reform Plan under development to address this, covering the delivery of the new Experts at Hand model, placement sufficiency and further Partnership development which this role will work with lead on coordinating and delivering, alongside a wider range of stakeholders and partners.
Despite the challenges, we remain innovative and passionate about improving the lives of our most vulnerable children. For those reasons morale in the service remains high.
We thank you for your interest in joining us in our mission to ensure Somerset children and young people live their best life. There’s a lot to build on, a lot that can be achieved, and a lot to do.
If you’re up for the challenge, let’s carry on the conversation.
Somerset Council
