Contents
Recommendations for the SEND Improvement Board
Review this document setting out progress since the paper submitted to the Board on 25 January 2023
Agree the Proposed Workforce Strategy Action Plan (April – August 2023) set out in Appendix 1 subject to further clarity on the specific training needs around the SEND Code of Practice and case Law with the Interim SEND Strategic Director, Head of Women’s and Children’s Commissioning – NHS Devon, and representatives from Parent Carer Forum Devon.
Agree the next steps:
- Deliver the agreed proposed Workforce Strategic Action Plan outlined in Appendix 1.
- Determine a clear plan for co-producing an ongoing comprehensive training programme to include specialist SEND training as well as generic training highlighted in Appendix 1 below.
- Identify the resources to deliver and monitor the training programme.
- Ongoing review and development of the workforce strategy and action plan in line with the relevant actions in the SEND Improvement Plan.
- Evaluation of current and planned activity, including outputs from engagement activity with employees, service user representatives, schools and other partners to inform the workforce strategy for the academic year 2023/24 and beyond.
- To apply learning from 0-25 activity to the wider SEND system including within DCC and with Health and other partners.
Context
The SEND 0-25 Team is under critical pressure and in need of intervention to support their people to stay well, provide clarity to enable good decisions and meet the needs of children and families across Devon. However, the team cannot be considered in isolation as better outcomes will arise through changes across the wider system.
There are concerns about the team’s wellbeing based on the current staffing numbers and the subsequent high workloads. Activity has taken place to support the teams and recruitment processes that have taken place since January 2023 have resulted in four employees being recruited.
Led by the SEND Interim Deputy Director and co-produced with Parent Career Forum Devon, there is an urgent need for SEND specialist training for the SEND 0-25 team to ensure that the team is:
- sufficiently trained in the SEND Code of Practice
- skilled in producing good EHCPs to enable better outcomes for families and children
- sufficiently skilled in communicating with parents, partners and colleagues
Progress since January 2023
Recruitment and staffing levels
Currently, within the 0-25 SEND Team there are 16 permanent vacancies:
- 14 are SEN education officer vacancies (caseworkers), and 12 of these have interims covering the post.
- One SEN Area Coordinator
- One SEN Assessment Coordinator
There are currently 29 interims on contract across the wider SEND structure:
- One SEND Director
- One Team Manager
- 20 case workers (this includes the 12 referenced above)
- Two post-16 case workers
- Five within the EHCP Backlog Team
Activity between January and March 2023
Since the SEND Improvement Board on 25 January 2023, the following activity has been delivered in relation to the workforce:
- Ongoing support and conflict resolution for the management team.
- Informal engagement with individuals in the team to gain an independent understanding of issues and pressures.
- Identified gaps in practice knowledge and conducted internal training on SEND code of practice for the team in January 2023.
- Recruited four caseworkers from the February round of recruitment.
- Advertising current vacancies with a closing date of 16 March, interviews end of March or first week in April.
- Reviewing current approach to attraction, based on learnings from Children’s Social Care, and providing recommendations to the service to improve candidate attraction.
- Wellbeing support leaflet created and shared with team to signpost employees to what can be accessed and how including EAP.
- Completed an options appraisal for an immediate solution to provide trauma support based on service needs.
- Conducted a SEND day with involvement from across DCC to explore key issues and priorities.
- Arranged focus groups to explore the issues impacting on staff in a way that is structured and can be used to inform priorities and activity.
- IPSEA training booked for June 2023.
This activity has been used to inform the actions identified for the 0-25 SEND Team Workforce Strategy: Action Plan (April – August 2023)
Workforce strategy
Purpose
The purpose of the workforce strategy is for our SEND provision to deliver better outcomes for children and families. The initial and immediate focus is on the 0-25 Team given the critical pressures currently in that team.
However, it will be necessary for the scope of some actions to be broader than this and incorporate other teams across SEND or interagency colleagues or both.
Timeframe
The initial strategy will be split into two time periods:
- Actions relating to the current school year (2022/23) to be delivered in April to August 2023.
- Actions relating to the next school year (2023/24) to be informed by outcomes from 2022/23.
There is minimal reference currently to actions for 2023/24, they will be defined between July and August 2023, as these will be informed by activity planned for delivery between April and June 2023.
Structure
The SEND Workforce Strategy is structured to reflect the themes used in the DCC ‘People First’ strategy:
- Wellbeing: Support the SEND 0-25 Team to stay well.
- Resourcing: A structure that is fit for purpose and fully staffed.
- Belonging: All staff experience a positive working environment.
- Voice: Structured engagement with employees to inform solutions.
- Learning: Knowledge and skills are up-to-date, reflect best practice and support employees and managers to work in a way that reflects the core principles and behaviours.
Inter-dependencies
There are several inter-dependencies between the workforce strategy and other workstreams, services and partners. These will have an impact on the timing of activity as well as the scope. They will also be integral to the workforce strategy for the 2023/24 academic year and beyond. These include:
- improving processes to enable good decision-making and provide clarity on timescales and scope to reduce the pressure on staff
- creation of a new complaints or mediation team to handle escalated complaints
- rollout of some interventions across the wider SEND service
- alignment to the wider Children’s Services Workforce Strategy
- development as part of the broader interagency workforce assessment
The proposed actions for April to August 2023 can be found in Appendix 1.
Report compiled by Damien Jones, Deputy Director for Transport Operations, Environment and Waste and Charlotte Halliday, Head of HR Operations.
23 March 2023
Appendix 1
| Theme | Activity | When |
|---|---|---|
| Wellbeing | Deliver a trauma support option for all staff to access over the next 3-6 months. | Apr 23 |
| Wellbeing | Using wellbeing themes from the March 23 focus groups, identify additional wellbeing opportunities to promote within the team, for example, Connect 5 training camps for managers, Able futures mental health support. | Apr 23 |
| Wellbeing | Deliver additional wellbeing interventions for the team as agreed. | May 23 – Jul 23 |
| Wellbeing | Evaluate impact and outcomes from wellbeing interventions and trauma support on the team and consider what will be offered ongoing and whether to scale it across the wider SEND teams. | Aug 23 |
| Resourcing | Delivery of an always on campaign, based on review following current March or April process to include paid advertising, social media activity, review of attraction messages and candidate profile. | Apr 23 – Aug 23 |
| Resourcing | Review and evaluate with user groups (Parent Carer Forum or DIAS) the change in recruitment process from their perspective to inform further improvements to the recruitment process and involvement of service users. | Apr 23 |
| Resourcing | Review approach to onboarding induction. | Apr 23 |
| Resourcing | Review the current shape of the 0-25 Team and identify alternatives for consideration by senior management (this will include considering different ways of working, for example, opportunity to create roles that can be more flexible, better career progression routes) | Apr 23 |
| Resourcing | Using the agreed future shape for the 0-25 Team complete review of JDs and benchmarking to ensure they reflect the role and responsibilities going forward. | Jun 23 – Aug 23 |
| Belonging | Deliver ‘Creating a positive working environment’ sessions for the 0-25 Team. | Apr 23 – May 23 |
| Belonging | Evaluate the impact of the positive working environment to identify any follow up activity for the 0-25 team and whether to grow and scale to other teams across SEND. | June 23 |
| Belonging | All of SEND to complete online mandatory Equality and Diversity training. | Apr 23 – May 23 |
| Voice | Evaluate and share the themes from the March focus groups to inform activity across all workstreams. | Apr 23 |
| Voice | Analysis of exit interviews for leavers between Jan 23 and Mar 23 to inform activity across all workstreams. | Apr 23 |
| Voice | Better analysis and presentation of workforce data to inform activity across all workstreams, for example, vacancy data, recruitment data, absence data, completion of training, exit interview themes. | Apr 23 |
| Learning | All managers to complete corporate Essentials for managers training if not previously completed. | Apr 23 – Jul 23 |
| Learning | Run a Core Practices for appraisals and one-to-ones for managers and identify any additional resources needed to support them in committing to honest and productive conversations once every six weeks with their team. | Apr 23 – Aug 23 |
| Learning | Create and deliver a structured practise learning plan to ensure all caseworkers have the professional knowledge and skills they need to deliver their role. | Apr 23 – Aug 23 |
| General | All managers to complete 1one-to-ones with their team every six weeks and their annual appraisal on iTrent to include wellbeing, learning and development and career progression discussions. | Apr 23 – Aug 23 |