Surrey County Council develops apprenticeship for staff to meet rising SEND demand
The county council hope to help tackle the rising SEND demand through a new apprenticeship scheme
Surrey County council is targeting the rising Special Educational needs demand with a new apprenticeship scheme.
The scheme will aim to take people already working within the council and give them the skills to be able to provide more assistance in SEND related issues.
Jonathan Hulley is the Cabinet Member for Education and ECHP (Education, Health and Care Plan). He spelt out to us how the apprenticeship would work in practical terms.
"At the end of this apprenticeship to provide support to the SEND service team when it comes to assessing a young person to determine whether or not that person should have a care plan.
They will then get involved in the exercise of delivering that plan, following an assessment and actually over time, depending on their levels of experience, also in the annual review of the appropriateness of that plan, particularly the support that that care plan offers that young person."
Hulley spoke about why now is the right time to give as much support into SEND services as possible
"It is quite a challenge. I mean, we have nearly 17,000 children with education, health and care plans in Surrey.
In Surrey, that number is going to grow even further. And indeed we are projected here in Surrey to have over 23,000 of these plans in place by 2034.
So the demand will simply increase and we have to keep up with that demand by boosting the numbers of SEND workers in our system, by improving the work they do in those roles, and we think this is another innovative way in which we can boost capacity to meet demand."
Hulley spoke about the task of setting the scheme up so that it could be delivered efficiently
"A lot of hard work has gone into planning for this apprenticeship scheme.
I want to pay tribute to the team in Surrey who have been working incredibly hard behind the scenes to be ready to go live with the scheme"