DT for Children in Care
Designated Teacher for Children in Care
The Department for Education statutory guidance for the roles and responsibilities of the designated teacher for children in care and children previously in care:
The designated teacher for looked-after and previously looked-after children - Feb 2018.pdf
The designated teacher for CIC must:
be a qualified teacher
be part of the senior leadership team
undertake appropriate training to update their knowledge and expertise around CIC
be the central point of initial contact within the school around CIC
take the lead in promoting and challenging the educational achievement of every CIC on the school's roll
provide training, information and advice to other school staff to understand the barriers to learning for CIC and how best to support them to learn and achieve
Updates to the duties of Designated Teachers for CIC:
- Greater focus on progress and evidence of rigorous monitoring
- Increased scrutiny on impact of PP+ interventions
- More liaison with SENCOs, subject and assessment leaders, and class teachers in completing the PEP and so ensuring that all the needs of the child are being met.
- More formal responsibility for ensuring that all staff understand the impact of trauma and attachment issues and the needs of children in care
- Greater focus on ensuring there is no delay in children in care accessing the graduated approach and undergoing statutory assessment if required.
- Ensuring that the PEP works in harmony with any other plans that the child has, for example IEPs, IBPs, EHCPs, care plans etc.
- Ensure that the school's behaviour policy is sufficiently flexible to respond to the challenging behaviour of children in care in the most effective way for the child.
- Identification of potential signs of mental health issues and accessing information and support where necessary
- Must regularly measure the emotional and behavioural difficulties experienced by children in care– using tools such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)
- Be more proactive in engaging with other partners to enable the school to respond effectively to the needs of children in care– this includes CAMHS, SEN services, VSHT etc.
- Ensure no delay in admission for a child in care
- Must contact the VSHT if a child is at risk of exclusion to discuss early support, effective intervention with behavioural issues and avoid the exclusion becoming necessary
- CEIAG needs to start before Y9
The following document around the role of the DT was developed by the Children in Care Council with input from teaching staff at the conference we held in September 2015.
