Early Years and Childcare Advisor

The Opportunity

EYCA Quality and Sufficiency

Salary: NJC Grade 10 GBP37,336 to GBP40,221 per annum

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: 37 hours per week (full time), Monday to Friday with occasional evening or weekend work, or 30 hours per week (part time, days to be agreed at interview)

Location: Crawley and Mid Sussex

EYCA SEND and Inclusion

Salary: NJC Grade 10 GBP37,336 to GBP40,221 per annum

Contract Type: Fixed Term/Secondment until 31 March 2025

Working Pattern: 37 hours per week (full time), Monday to Friday with occasional evening or weekend work

Location: South - Chichester, Arun, and Worthing

Closing date: 30 June 2024

Interview date: 08 and 09 July 2024

Please note:

• You will need to be able to travel across the county to settings in both rural and urban areas. You will cover a geographical area but may need to travel countywide.
• Internal candidates wishing to apply for this role will be considered for a secondment position. Please discuss and agree this with your manager before applying for this position.

Are you passionate about supporting young children to have the best start in life?

Do you have experience leading Early Years and Childcare practice?

If you enjoy creative solutions and sharing your ideas, we would love to hear from you.

As an Early Years and Childcare Advisor for Quality and Sufficiency, you will support Early Years and Childcare settings to deliver sustainable, high quality, inclusive practice. Your focus will be to support providers across West Sussex to sustainably meet the provision needs of children and their families. This is crucial to ensuring young children have the best start in life and identifying additional support through inclusive practice.

As an Early Years and Childcare Advisor for SEND and Inclusion, you will work with Early Years and Childcare providers across West Sussex to provide education and care tailored to meet the needs of individual children with SEND need. They will also lead multi-agency discussion to identify and plan for the needs of children identified with SEND to enable them to make good progress before they start school.

You will collaborate and work in partnership with colleagues and a range of organisations, such as Early Years settings, childminders and out of school provisions, to support every child to achieve their full potential.

This role is varied, and the Early Years team are supportive and passionate about ensuring children receive the best experience in Early Years and Childcare, enabling families to have access to childcare for 0-14-year-olds (or up to 18 for children with a disability).

About You

Key responsibilities of this role include:

• Reviewing the sufficiency of childcare places and providing business support.
• Compliance of the Early Years entitlement and other funding streams.
• Supporting Early Years settings to identify children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
• Developing effective professional relationships with providers and customers.
• Observing and modelling practice to staff in Early Years and Childcare settings.
• Reviewing sufficiency of places across a geographical area.
• Keeping up to date with research, safeguarding, regulations, policies, practices and procedures.

As an EYCA, you will need a high level of professional knowledge as well as significant experience of working within the Early Years and Childcare sector.

We are looking for someone who has clear communication skills to offer advice and guidance, and who can adapt and re-prioritise work in response to changes. You will spend a significant amount of time working away from colleagues, so you will need to be organised and self-motivated.

For more information on the Key Skills, Qualifications and/or Experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached.

Benefits - For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

In your cover letter please state your preferred role(s) and explain the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills).

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

This post is subject to an enhanced DBS check, five years referencing and an occupational health check.

Equity, inclusion, and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.