Education Engagement Practitioner WCC624345 in City of Westminster

As a Secondary Education Engagement Practitioner, you can make your own powerful contribution to Westminster's success. You'll work closely with schools to support attendance and inclusion, helping ensure they receive a consistent core offer from the Attendance & Inclusion Team and that vulnerable pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, are supported to improve attendance.

You'll work with schools to identify children and families who may be at greater risk of poor outcomes and who are not currently accessing the right support. This will include managing a caseload of families where children have complex needs and multiple barriers to attendance, particularly where attendance is at 75% or below.

An important part of your role will be working directly with children, young people and their families, both individually and in groups where needed. You'll take a systemic and trauma-informed approach, recognising that improving attendance is about understanding the whole picture - not relying on legal sanctions in isolation.

Where appropriate, you'll coordinate Team Around meetings, contribute to Family Plans and make planned referrals in consultation with families. You'll also support schools to make effective use of universal services, including health and voluntary sector partners, helping reduce demand on children's services where appropriate.

By enabling schools to take on the role of lead professional when needed, you'll help build confidence and capacity within education settings to support children and families earlier. Partnership working will be central to the role. You'll liaise with professionals, local services and agencies within and outside the borough to co-create sustainable reintegration plans for pupils enrolled at Westminster schools.

For pupils who live out of borough, you'll help facilitate access to local services by mediating with other local authority representatives and partner agencies. You'll maintain a strong working knowledge of community resources and available support, signposting families and professionals clearly and appropriately.

You'll also keep up to date with legislation, new policies and best practice in education, child protection and children's services, ensuring your work remains informed, safe and effective. Safeguarding will run through everything you do. You'll carry out comprehensive assessments, ensure effective risk management and develop outcome-focused plans for severely absent pupils.

Where concerns arise, you'll follow safeguarding procedures, make referrals and support safety planning when necessary. And lastly, you'll also represent the service in a range of forums, take part in training, and carry out other duties appropriate to the level as required by the Attendance Manager.

You’ll bring experience of working directly with families of children with complex needs, with a good understanding of threshold management and the importance of getting the right support in place at the right time. You'll also have experience in an educational context, working with school leaders and understanding the pressures, procedures and challenges that schools face.

You’ll be confident working as a key lead professional with a range of agencies, bringing people together through a Team Around approach. Building relationships will be a real strength - whether that's with families in challenging circumstances, professionals across different services, or community partners who can help support children and young people more effectively.

A strong understanding of child development, wellbeing and the issues affecting families in diverse inner-city communities will guide your work. You'll also bring knowledge of safeguarding, child protection, school attendance, admissions, exclusions and the wider education system, as well as the legislation, policies and procedures relating to statutory school attendance.

You’ll know how to work in a strengths-based and outcomes-focused way, using evidence-informed interventions and practice models to support children, young people and families. This might include approaches such as restorative practice, motivational interviewing, parenting approaches, counselling or solution-focused work - always choosing the right approach for the family and situation.

You’ll be confident using assessment frameworks and tools to produce clear, evidence-based assessments of needs, strengths and risk. From there, you’ll be able to develop outcome-focused support plans that are reviewed and updated as circumstances change, making sure work remains purposeful and centred on the child or young person.

Working with a high level of autonomy will suit you. You’ll be able to use your professional initiative, make sound decisions with low-level support and remain accountable for the quality of your work. Strong engagement, negotiation and brokerage skills will help you communicate clearly, collaborate well and build trust with both service users and colleagues.

You’ll also understand the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, and the processes used to make sure they receive appropriate levels of support. In everything you do, you’ll bring clear communication, sound judgement and a practical, compassionate approach to helping families overcome barriers and improve attendance outcomes.