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About Haringey

We are a council with high ambitions; a place to work that is full of energy and focus. Our teams have passion, integrity and commitment, and people join us, do so as they see Haringey is a learning organisation, and the people that work here strive for continuous improvement in their practice, aiming high to ensure we provide outstanding outcomes for our children, young people and families.

Haringey SEND (special, education, needs and disabilities) is a multi-agency service made up of various teams such Education Psychology, Statutory Assessment, Inclusion and Home to School Transport supported by a range of differently qualified disciplines including social work, teachers, education psychologists, early years practitioners, community development and educationalists.

The primary role of the service is to provide high quality strategic and operational leadership and management to the SEND service and system leadership for the SEND partnership.

The service has been through a significant transformation and improvement journey, resulting in our recent joint area inspection by Ofsted and CQC in February 24, where we were given the highest grading possible for effective arrangements in place for children and young people with SEND. We are also in our second year of our Safety Valve Programme, making good progress and in both achieving best outcomes for children and young people and delivering best value within existing resources.

The work of the SEND Service is underpinned by Haringey’s SEND Strategy and local Safety Valve Programme.

About the Role

The council has been on a significant journey of improvement, with ambition to deliver the best outcomes for Children, Young People and their Families. We need exceptional leaders who are committed to providing "the right support for the right child at the right time" and this post is key to supporting the senior leaders to develop an environment for excellent SEND services. We want to ensure child and young person centred, efficient, effective, high quality services. This will be a challenging but very rewarding role; you will be the designated lead officer for all SEND matters and play a crucial role in our work with all of our children, young people, families and partners in improving our delivery.

Your role will be to primarily lead the strategic development, co-ordination and operational delivery of effective SEND arrangements, reporting directly to the Assistant Director for Early Help, Prevention and SEND.

You will have operational responsibility for the day-to-day functioning of the SEND Service and ensure it is delivered seamlessly and safely to a high standard within its regulatory framework, safeguarding and statutory duties. You will be leading on the continuous improvement of standards and outcomes for children and young people with SEND and their families informed by analysis of quantitative data and qualitative feedback, alongside overseeing tribunals, complaints and Members Enquiries for the SEND Team.

You will lead the leadership and management team which consists of Service Managers, Team Managers, Senior Practitioners, Performance and Business support. You will also be responsible for the matrix management of staff across the Children's directorate and wider council supporting the delivery of our Safety Valve Programme.

You will be the overall strategic lead for the SEND Strategy, working with a wide range of key stakeholders. This role is a systems leadership post, therefore you will be working in partnership with children and young people, parents and carers, health providers, education providers, social care, early help services and the voluntary sector ensuring a high level of engagement to ensure a good quality, efficient, effective economic and service user focussed system.

For a comprehensive list of role responsibilities, please check the attached job description and person specification

Working for Haringey

At Haringey Council we are committed to creating a workplace culture where all our people feel valued, included, and able to be their best at work, and we recognise the benefits of a diverse workforce so welcome applications from all ethnicities and communities so that we continue to make a difference to our residents and community.

Our benefits package includes a leave entitlement up to 31 days + bank holidays, potential hybrid working opportunities, health and wellbeing support, a generous local government pension scheme and a range of discount schemes across leisure and culture that provide both financial and money-saving discounts.

Please note: we reserve the right to end this advert before the noted deadline if we receive sufficient applications. If you wish to apply for this role please ensure that you do so as soon as possible.

Additionally, we are aware that automated emails may end be diverted through to junk email folders.  Please continue to check these through the application process.  If you have any questions about the status of you application please contact 

About You

We are looking for an experienced and skilled leader with a proven ability of overseeing and continuously improving services which deliver outstanding outcomes for children and young people with SEND and their families. You will have a qualification at degree level in a related discipline such as education, health or social work and demonstrable experience in SEND.

The Head of SEND will be an ambassador of best practice. We need someone who is creative, innovative and motivated to deliver a high quality and effective SEND service. You will be a highly proficient professional with a strong track record of managing statutory services concerning children, young people, and their families. You will be an expert in SEND and have extensive knowledge and experience of applying the policies and resulting processes, best practice and statutory regulations relating to children and young people with SEND. You will also have significant experience in managing financial resources.

Our successful candidate should be able to evidence extensive partnership experience of multi-agency work and multi-disciplinary practice across the SEND system.

We are looking for someone who has demonstrable experience of effective leadership of teams ability which motivates, innovates and enable staff to reach their potential, demonstrated through delivery of a high-quality service.

Specific skills and experience are important to us, as is your attitude and your incredible passion and unwavering commitment to making a positive difference to the lives of Haringey children, young people, their families, and communities.

For an informal discussion, please contact Jackie Difolco, Assistant Director: Early Help, Prevention and SEND on (e) or (m) (phone number removed)