{"id":65869,"date":"2025-04-28T12:17:53","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T11:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/?p=65869"},"modified":"2025-04-30T10:16:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T09:16:06","slug":"new-head-of-send-operations-joins-devon-county-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/new-head-of-send-operations-joins-devon-county-council\/","title":{"rendered":"New Head of SEND Operations joins Devon County Council"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Devon County Council is welcoming its new Head of SEND Operations, Claire Merchant Jones, to the team this month.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claire is responsible for the operation of the SEND Statutory Team, which carries out Education Health and Care (EHC) needs assessments and maintains and reviews EHC plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She joins the council following six years as Head of SEND in Somerset Council, having spent her earlier career as a teacher and leader in Further Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claire lives in Somerset, where she is a trustee at her children\u2019s secondary school, and outside of work she loves swimming in the sea, and reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cI am really looking forward to getting to know more about Devon and working with new people across the county,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am personally and professionally committed to making sure that children are visible and supported within their local communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing a trustee at my children\u2019s secondary school has helped me to understand the challenges and opportunities facing schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust one week into my new role, I can safely say that I feel that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Claire reports to the Council\u2019s SEND Strategic Director, Kellie Knott.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":65870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,2175,2214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children-families-and-education","category-send-category","category-send-news"],"acf":[],"featured_image":{"ID":65870,"title":"Claire Merchant Jones Head of SEND Operations","alt":"Claire Merchant Jones Head of SEND Operations","description":"","caption":"Claire Merchant Jones Head of SEND Operations","url":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations.jpg","width":1200,"height":675,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-400x270.jpg","thumbnail_width":400,"thumbnail_height":270,"medium":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-600x338.jpg","medium_width":600,"medium_height":338,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-768x432.jpg","medium_large_width":768,"medium_large_height":432,"large":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-800x450.jpg","large_width":800,"large_height":450,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations.jpg","1536x1536_width":1200,"1536x1536_height":675,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations.jpg","2048x2048_width":1200,"2048x2048_height":675,"thumbnail_featured":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-770x450.jpg","thumbnail_featured_width":770,"thumbnail_featured_height":450,"thumbnail_sidebar":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-200x135.jpg","thumbnail_sidebar_width":200,"thumbnail_sidebar_height":135,"banner-block":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-440x440.jpg","banner-block_width":440,"banner-block_height":440,"small-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-640x360.jpg","small-banner_width":640,"small-banner_height":360,"medium-banner":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-1024x576.jpg","medium-banner_width":1024,"medium-banner_height":576,"small-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-640x480.jpg","small-thumb_width":640,"small-thumb_height":480,"medium-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-320x240.jpg","medium-thumb_width":320,"medium-thumb_height":240,"large-thumb":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-420x315.jpg","large-thumb_width":420,"large-thumb_height":315,"slideshow-preview":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-300x200.jpg","slideshow-preview_width":300,"slideshow-preview_height":200,"slideshow":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/146\/2025\/04\/Claire-Merchant-Jones-Head-of-SEND-Operations-800x533.jpg","slideshow_width":800,"slideshow_height":533}},"category_priority":false,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2027-04-28 11:58:54","action":"delete","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65871,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65869\/revisions\/65871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}