The Inclusion, Participation and Specialist Support Team work with schools, settings and other local authority services to avoid drift or delay in securing suitable education provision, our children in care have good school attendance, they are not at risk of exclusion and they have to opportunity to participate in enrichment activities.

The team also ensure that children with special educational needs have their needs identified at met in a timely manner. 

Kristian Is our Education Advisor for Inclusion. Kristian leads the Inclusion & Participation teams and the SEN Team 

Rhian Ferguson is our Education Liaison Officer who leads on promoting inclusion and reducing exclusion. Rhian also leads on off site enrichment activities. 

Bethan is our SEN Casework Officer is the lead officer for all our children and young people who have an Education Health and Care Plan.   

Our Education support Officers work closely with schools and other local authority services to ensure our children are not suspended from school and have good school attendance. Our Education support Officers work with designated teachers, social workers, parents/carers and other local authority teams and also provide direct interventions with children, delivering individual mentoring programmes, enrichment activities, therapeutic interventions and Speech and Language assessments .

Claire Birch is our Education support Officer for the North and Central & South Locality 

Dalian Poole is our Education Support Officer for the Schools in the East & West Locality 

Christina Sadler is our SEN Education Support Officer 

Raj is responsible for the upkeep of our ePEP and attendance systems. 

Emma is our Senior Mental Health Practitioner who works with designated teachers, teachers and support staff to support school placement stability and improve the emotional wellbeing and mental health of our children in care 

Emma will also carry out direct work with children and young people and provide whole school, group and 1:1 training 

Helen and Natasha are our Speech and Language Therapists (SaLTs)

They offer advice and support for children and young people who have speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) either as a specific area of difficulty or associated with other difficulties. Specific areas of need may include:

• difficulties in understanding and/or using spoken language
• learning and retrieving vocabulary
• speaking clearly
• talking fluently
• communicating effectively in social situations

Lisa Sabotig, Marnie Aston and Laura Kirven are our Educational Psychologists (EPs).

Our Virtual Schools EPs support looked after children who are experiencing social and emotional difficulties within their school or care placement, with the aim of:

Improving emotional wellbeing of children and young people

Enhancing  education and care placement stability

Promoting  nurturing and attachment friendly environments

Lisa, Marnie and Laura also deliver training to schools, social workers and parents/carers and deliver our Attachment Aware schools Project