SENA Senior Case Manager - Tribunals and Mediation Team

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Job Description

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Salary: £42,498 - £46,344 per annum (pro-rata for part-time)

Working Hours:37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 27th January 2025

Interview Date(s): TBC

We are advertising for 2 permanent positions due to increase capacity within our busy SENA Service. The posts will initially be based in our tribunal team, and you may be required to work flexibly across other teams as demand requires at a senior level.

About the Role

• To use professional expertise to provide advice and support to a range of colleagues within Children and Families Services and partner agencies to enhance positive outcomes for children and young people using performance data and intelligence within a multi-agency approach. Liaising with a range of external stakeholders, including schools, expert witnesses, for example Educational Psychologists, Specialist Teachers to ensure that any and all relevant evidence regarding Tribunal appeals is obtained and quality assured before submission to the Tribunal.
• To take the lead role in complex cases, often requiring multi-disciplinary working with external services such as Social Care, Health Services, other local authorities and specialist educational settings to deliver the best outcomes for children and young people
• Effective problem solving, assimilating information, and making informed decisions often under short time constraints. Working directly with parental appointed legal representatives, schools and link agencies within the statutory and legal framework related to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal process
• To model good case work practice and encourage continuing professional development of colleagues via coaching, joint working and contributing to the development and delivery of training. Ensuring service performance quality standards are adhered to within the framework for Leicestershire County Council's priorities for children and families; any relevant Government legislative requirements and objective setting based on local commissioning, strategic imperatives and performance frameworks
• Maintaining effective communication and build strong, professional relationships with parents, schools, central services, health and social care professionals regarding individual cases
• To lead and support attendance and information sharing in a range of formal meetings including person-centred co-production meetings, annual reviews, mediation meetings and court hearings for appeal tribunals as agreed with the Service Manager
• To develop practice which limits the Authority's exposure to the risk of appeals to Tribunals, litigation and judicial review/complaints to the Local Government Ombudsman. This would include providing all information relating to and directly responding to complaints, Members' Enquiries, Ombudsman and Judicial Review complaints, or where appropriate, responding directly if and when appropriate

  An enhanced DBS check is required for this post.

About You

To apply for this post, you must:

Have an appropriate professional qualification such as a first degree or equivalent (or significant relevant experience in the SEN field of practice) and evidence of continuing professional development Training in the relevant SEND legislation Or Demonstrable experience in a special educational needs context and/or within a Local Authority or statutory body
Extensive and recent post-qualification experience of working with children and families in the SEND assessment processes and procedures

• Recent experience of supporting the development of staff/colleagues and joint working.
• Experience of analysing and interpreting performance data and intelligence to inform improved practice and more efficient and effective processes
• Proven experience of coordinating multi-agency work to support children and families using formal outcome focused plans
• In depth knowledge and ability to apply relevant policies, appropriate legislation, government guidance and best practice in all aspects of SEND work
• Extensive knowledge of relevant SENA processes and how these can be integrated into service delivery to enhance outcomes for children.
• Advanced knowledge of the statutory duties of the Local Authority including child protection and looked after children processes
• Significant knowledge of the factors and influences which can impact on children achieving positive outcomes, including cognitive development, physical difficulties or other SEN needs

you must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.

In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

Interested in Flexible Working?

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Cathryn Allison - Service Manager

Telephone: +441163053703

Email: Cathryn.Allison@leics.gov.uk

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.freshdesk.com/support/home.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

About Us

About Leicestershire County Council

Leicestershire County Council is a Disability Confident, Menopause Friendly, Mindful Employer, Fostering Friendly, Forces Friendly, and Cycle Friendly organisation. In August 2021, we also signed up to the Race at Work Charter. We are strongly committed to promoting equality and opportunity, championing employee wellbeing and investing in staff training and development.

Our aim is to work with communities and partners to deliver public services that make Leicestershire the best possible place to live and work for everyone. Our employees play a key role in supporting this goal and helping us deliver the vital services we provide to the people of Leicestershire.

For further information on what it's like to work for us and the benefits we offer, please refer to the following:

Our Recruitment Process
Our Organisational Values
Our Employee Benefits
Working for Us