Portage Practitioner

• This role is based at County Hall, Taunton. You will be expected to work 1 day in the office.
• The contract offered is permanent, Term Time only – 39 weeks. 32 Hours and 27 Hours available.

As a Portage Practitioner home visitor, you will be required to support pre-school children with SEND and their families. You will work in partnership with parents to model an educational programme of learning and development in the home and offer support through a key worker role, using a family centred approach.

 Your day-to-day work will involve:

• Carrying a caseload of families, each of which will be visited weekly, in their homes and monitoring weekly progress, preparing follow-up activities according to progress made during the previous week.
• Observing children and preparing, with parents, a detailed record of the child’s current skills, using The Development Journal.
• Preparing programmes of activities to be practiced by parent and child.
• Liaising with a range of other professionals and educational settings as required to support multi-agency work, consistent approaches across home and Early years settings, and the transition to school.
• Attending regular team meetings and participating in staff development programmes.

We offer ongoing support, training and guidance to help you be the best you can be. But it will really help if you have:

• Experience of being responsible for keeping up to date computerised records and managing a diary.
• Experience of working with a multi-agency framework.
• Completed the National Portage Association Portage Workshop.
• A relevant child development qualification.

We’re proud to be here for the people of Somerset. And that means everyone in Somerset. An important part of this is ensuring that we are as diverse and inclusive as the people and communities we serve.

We welcome applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences to enrich our team. You can always contact the hiring manager for a chat if there’s anything you want to talk about before you apply.

We are proud to offer an environment that is supportive and rewarding, working as part of a team who are passionate about the work they do to improve the lives of people in Somerset.

We offer great training and development opportunities, with supportive management. As well as this, we have some fantastic employee benefits available:

• We promote a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements wherever possible, including working from home.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the opportunity to purchase additional leave
• Staff discounts in gyms.
• Employee Assistance for the times you may need some support and a variety of employee wellbeing services.
• Auto enrolment onto our generous Pension Scheme and optional pension enhancement through our Additional Voluntary Contribution scheme.
• A Flexible Benefits Scheme via salary sacrifice to obtain a cycle for work and health screenings.
• My Staff Shop offering discounts in shops, online shopping, restaurants, cinema tickets, insurance benefits and more

The Salary for the role is Grade 14, ranging from £25,185 to £25,989 per annum.

For an informal chat about the role, please contact Chelsey Oxley, Senior expert Advisor – Early Identification via chelsey.oxley@somerset.gov.uk

Interviews to take place week commencing 15^th December.

When completing your application/CV please provide your full employment history and ensure that any gaps in employment are explained. Please start with your current or most recent employment.

If you have all the information you need, just hit the apply button - we can’t wait to hear from you.

This post requires a criminal background check via the Disclosure procedure.