I am the Lead Attendance Advisor for BDSIP and enjoy supporting a team of amazing people that have the same ethos as myself which is to support families and young people within the education system, removing barriers and seeking solutions to attendance concerns whilst enhancing life chances and wellbeing.
6yrs ago I was inspired to join BDSIP due to having the opportunity to work closely with our schools BDSIP Attendance Advisor. I learned that BDSIP was a new and exciting organisation starting out and that it was school-owned and school-led which I decided I wanted to be a part of.
My previous role as a Family Support Practitioner in SEND Provisions in the Barking & Dagenham area gave me a valuable insight into the struggles families and young people were experiencing in day-to-day life which was seriously impacting their education. My support, knowledge and guidance given was usually around Finances, Budgeting, Health, Wellbeing, Benefits to name but a few. I feel I made a difference as with parents and home life supported this enabled students to improve their attendance, social skills and education. Prior to this I enjoyed my role as a Senior Youth worker in Essex, managing teams of Youth Workers and working with young people on projects such as Alternative Education, Complementary Education, Princes Trust, National Citizens Service, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Young Carers and Endeavour for young people with special needs. These roles entailed supporting young people to make informed decisions to improve their life chances and develop skills to enhance social and educational outcomes, whilst having fun. During my time as a Youth Worker I gained my degree qualification in Youth and Community Work, it was throughout this period of study I learned about many ideologies, reflection in and on action all which have supported my practice within all my roles.
I have been part of the BDSIP team that has developed the Attendance Network Events and a Handbook to support schools with Attendance. I recently volunteered to join the Code of Ethics work party and benefited from being part of a team that advocated the whole organisations ideas to create a document that endorses what we do/feel/expect, as a result we produced our Code of Ethics.
Last year I gained a promotion to Lead Attendance Adviser. I continue to work within schools to encourage improved attendance and parental engagement, monitoring PAs and SAs, home visits, parent meetings, action plans, signposting, attending CIN/CP meetings, legal processes, exploring disproportionate groups, data analysis. I have also been involved with recruiting to our already successful team, ensuring induction, development and the latest up to date guidance/training is adhered to in order to continue delivering the best service possible. I shall be delivering training around the Strategic trends and how to compare the data to enable us to deliver a bespoke service to our schools. With new legal guidance coming into force in August which will see many changes in relation to legal procedures, we shall be working closely with all our schools to ensure a smooth transition with the new processes. I have introduced collaborative creativity time into our diaries to ensure we continue to strengthen ourselves and our service. I believe we learn a lot from each other and ensure we as a team have opportunities to share good practice and work shadow. I am currently working on our CPD offer which we hope to be increasing with opportunities to give extra assistance/training for our schools and out of borough provisions.
It is my belief that all children should have the opportunity to have an education to ensure they grow up with good life chances, not only academically but with social skills, understanding relationships, responsibility, ability to make decisions, tolerance, peace, cultural awareness and many more tools that help to prepare them for a fulfilling life.
