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Our Story:

Halton is a vibrant local authority with a rich history and heritage, featuring two iconic bridges that connect communities across the River Mersey. Located in Cheshire, Halton boasts excellent transport links between Liverpool and Manchester, as well as close proximity to both Liverpool John Lennon and Manchester Airports.

Our progressive community strategy aims to bring about meaningful, long-term improvements that enhance lives. It’s an exciting time to join us as we develop new policies and transform the way people access services.

We are immensely proud that when asked what’s great about working for Halton, the most popular response from our workforce has been ‘our colleagues’.

Our Team:

Halton Family Hubs support children and young people from birth to age 19 (or up to 25 for young people with special educational needs and disabilities). Bringing together council, health and community services, we ensure that children, young people and families can access the right support, at the right time, in the right place.

Our Family Hubs provide welcoming and inclusive spaces, both in local communities and through outreach services, where families can access practical, non-judgemental support. Services include maternity and health visiting support, early years development and play opportunities, family support, parenting programmes, speech and language development, emotional wellbeing support, and targeted help for children with disabilities, additional needs and their families.

As part of the Government's Best Start for Life and Family Hubs programme, Halton is strengthening its early identification and inclusion offer for babies and young children with emerging or additional needs. We are therefore creating a Best Start Inclusion Team to work collaboratively with other professionals to promote inclusion, strengthen family confidence and improve access to services. Through advice, modelling of inclusive practice, developmental activities and workforce support, the Best Start Inclusion Team will help ensure that every child gets the best possible start in life.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a developing service at the forefront of early identification, inclusion and family support, helping to shape and embed Halton's Family Hub SEND offer and make a lasting difference for children and families.

The post will be based within one of Halton's Family Hubs and applicants are invited to express a preference for being based in either Runcorn or Widnes as part of the application process. Whilst every effort will be made to accommodate preferences, the successful candidate will be expected to work flexibly across all Family Hub locations and partner settings across the borough.

Hours: 37 hours per week

Your Contributions:

We are seeking an enthusiastic, committed and confident leader to be the Best Start Inclusion Coordinator in our Family Hubs team. You will be passionate about improving outcomes for babies and young children with emerging or additional needs, supporting families to access the right help early, and promoting inclusive practice across Halton's Best Start for Life and Family Hub network. Working as part of a multi-agency team, you will help ensure children receive the support they need to thrive and reach their full potential.

This is a key leadership role that will oversee and support a team of Best Start Inclusion Practitioners (BSIPs), ensuring high-quality, consistent and impactful delivery of early identification and inclusion support for babies and young children with emerging or additional needs. The role will be instrumental in embedding inclusive practice across Family Hubs and helping to deliver the Government's ambition for children to have the best possible start in life.

You will provide operational leadership, supervision and practice oversight to the BSIP team, supporting staff development, quality assurance, performance monitoring and effective partnership working. As well this, you'll work closely with colleagues across health, SEND, early years, education, social care and the voluntary and community sector to strengthen pathways, remove barriers and improve outcomes for children and families

You will build strong relationships, use data and insight to drive improvement, and translate national policy and local priorities into effective operational practice. This is an exciting opportunity to shape a developing service, support a skilled workforce and play a leading role in the development of Halton's Best Start Family Hub SEND offer.

Essential Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• Degree or equivalent professional qualification in early years, education, health, SEND, social care or a related field, or be able to demonstrate significant relevant experience

• Experience of operational leadership or first-line management within Early Years, SEND, Early Help or Family Support services

• Experience of providing supervision, guidance and support to practitioners.

• Experience of effective multi-agency working and partnership development.

• Experience of using data, performance information and practice insight to support service improvement and decision making.

• A strong understanding of child development, inclusion and early intervention for children aged 0-5.

• A good working knowledge of SEND systems, pathways and early identification processes

• The ability to analyse, interpret and present operational information clearly and effectively.

• Confidence in chairing meetings, facilitating discussions and leading collaborative problem-solving. • Excellent communication, organisational and relationship-building skills.

Desirable Experience:

We would particularly welcome applications from individuals with:

• Experience of service development, transformation or continuous improvement activity.

• Knowledge of Family Hub delivery models and Early Years SEND policy.

• Experience of working alongside parent carer forums, community groups or voluntary sector organisations.

If you are an inspiring and collaborative leader with a commitment to inclusion and early intervention, and are excited by the opportunity to help shape and lead a new service that will make a lasting difference to children and families across Halton, we would love to hear from you.

Our Offer:

Aside from working with a great team, our employees have access to a fantastic range of benefits, including:

• A generous annual holiday allowance starting at 34 days per year (including bank holidays), increasing with long service

• Membership of our defined benefit, salary-linked Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) with generous employer contributions

• 3 x Salary Life Cover via Local Government Pension Scheme

• Investment in your personal development

• Free Car Parking at HBC sites

• Flexible working arrangements

• Extensive employee benefits platform including discounted shopping, car leasing, gym memberships, wellbeing hub and Employee Assistance Programme.

Next Steps:

At Halton Borough Council, we want all of our candidates to feel well-informed so if you would like to have an informal chat about this role, please contact Adam Hindhaugh - Adam.Hindhaugh@halton.gov.uk.

Interviews are expected to take place w/c 24th August.

At Halton Borough Council we want to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce and a vital part of this is to encourage diversity in all respects. We are committed to making our recruitment practices barrier-free and tailored to best suit the needs and strength of the individual. This includes making adjustments for people with a disability, neurodiversity or with long-term health conditions. If you require accommodations, please reach out during the recruitment process so that we can make this the best possible experience for you – resourcing@halton.gov.uk

Please refer to the attached Job Profile for further information about the role and our values.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy earlier than the specified date should we receive sufficient applications. If you’re interested, please complete your application as early as possible.

We look forward to receiving your application!