Early Years SEND Inclusion Portage Practitioner

Children and Families Department

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall Glenfield LE3 8RA

Worker Category: Fixed Location Worker

Salary: per annum (prorata for parttime)

Working Hours:22 hours term time Only

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 21st April 2025

Interview Date(s): TBC

About the Role

We have an exciting opportunity for you to join our Early Years Inclusion and Childcare service as Early Years SEND and Portage practitioner. The post of Early Years SEND and Portage practitioner will allow you the opportunity to join a highly skilled enthusiastic team. We work with children from birth to school entry who have identified additional needs. You will work with children both in their homes and in early years provision.

Alongside this you will have the opportunity to support training delivered to Early Years Providers and to parents too. You will also organise and run sensory play sessions and Portage groups for caseload families.

You will be trained as a Portage Practitioner and will work with the youngest children with additional needs. You will have the opportunity to develop your own skills and knowledge through training and working alongside experienced colleagues.

A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.

An enhanced DBS check is required for this post.

About You

To apply for this post you must:

• To promote the education and development of children under 3 in collaboration with the Portage Managers to implement educational programmesby modelling practice sharing information and offering advice to the staff working in early years settings.
• To develop a collaborative working environment by maintaining and enhancing effective relationships with everyone involved with the child.
• To be willing to travel tovarious places of work which include settings and childrens homes to model strategies for parents and providers to help the child develop
• To support childrens transition into preschool and support inclusive practice
• To take an active part in the planning preparingand running of events across the county for caseload children and families
• To prepare resources and reports on the progress of children as requested and contribute to the assessment of children you work with
• To support the design and assist in the delivery of training to a variety of early years professionals parents school staff and staff from the voluntary sector.

Our main aim is to improve outcomes for children of Leicestershire. If you are successful you will be supported by Managers to be creative and solution focused as well as having access to a variety of professional development opportunities. People who work in our service say that we are a caring approachable friendly service who work well together and with other professionals. Staff are made to feel valued and that they are making a difference.

As Children and Family department we are committed to our vision of becoming a trauma informed responsive department. We will strive to create a safe compassionate environment demonstrated through relationships based on trust respect hope and empathy. We will achieve this through a spirit of curiosity by nurturing connections through relationships making a deliberate effort to know and understand people.

We have an Inclusion and Diversity working party that meets regularly and the local authority has other supportive groups where you will have the opportunity to learn and connect with others.

We operate on a fully inclusive employment policy and therefore welcome without exceptions candidates who have protected characteristics. Our one prerequisite is that you are the best at what you do.

You must also have an understanding of and commitment toequality diversity and inclusion.

In addition we also expect you to shareour commitment to our valuesand 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 individuals 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 termtime working parttime 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 Stylespage on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussionplease contact:

Ruth Melluish Team Manager (Early Years SEND Inclusion Team)

Telephone:

Email:

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 Applysection 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 telephoning0(select option 2 or raising a ticket via our online portal: applying for this post you agree to ourTerms and Conditions.