Access And Engagement Officer

Access and Engagement Officer
Islington
£28/hr
Start date: ASAP
Akton recruitment is working closely with the local authorities and we are looking for an experienced Access and Engagement Officer in the Islington area. 3 - 6 months contract.
Key responsibilities
Key areas of responsibility will include improving school attendance, reducing absence and persistent absenteeism across the local authority.
Acting on behalf of the Council, the postholder will prepare the local authority's case when a parent is prosecuted for failure to secure their child's regular school attendance, and carry out statutory duties relating to child employment and licensing in line with published guidelines.
The postholder will provide targeted advice to schools on individual pupils and undertake casework for 'Missing Pupils' and children being electively home educated.
The primary functions of the post are to ensure:
* The local authority fulfils its statutory duties in relation to school attendance by working closely with schools to secure timely interventions and consistency of approach to rewards and sanctions;
* Court Warnings and Penalty Notices are issued appropriately by quality assuring referrals from schools to confirm that due consideration is given to individual circumstances to ensure sanctions are applied consistently and fairly across Islington schools;
* Child employment and Elective Home Education processes are followed robustly with a sharp focus on the effective monitoring of safeguarding arrangements;
* The delivery of a customer-focused service through implementing agreed processes and prioritising tasks in order to meet deadlines and service specification requirements;
* Records are kept up-to-date, making full use of electronic recording methods e.g. LA pupil database (Capita ONE) as required
* The service always acts in a child's best interests by consulting children on major decisions that will affect them so they understand the implications; initiating formal action only when it is clearly in the child's best interests to do so;
* The continuous improvement of the service's working relationship with schools
Qualifications
1 Educated to degree level or level 3 qualification or extensive relevant work experience in a related field
Experience
2 Significant experience of working with schools or in an education setting in an attendance related field (eg. Education Welfare and/or social work and/or teaching-based experience)
3 Demonstrable knowledge of school systems and extensive experience of the issues affecting persistent absenteeism and non-school attendance.
4 Sound knowledge of Elective Home Education (EHE) guidance and experience of working with EHE parents and EHE organisations.
5 Direct experience of multi agency working.