Applied for job! ANY EWO'S OUT THERE?

[gingerninger]

I have recently been made redundant, from LEA. I have applied for a Education Welfare Officers job, and while I am more than qualified for the job... no to sure what it would entail, and the legal aspect???

Hope you're made of stern stuff!!

Would involve liasing with schools and targetting the non attenders, home visits, lots of liasing with other services eg social services in fact I would say that there is a strong element of social work in the job.

You would keep records and if necessary build a case should it need to go to court.

Thank Conn!er What are the legalities with regards to time off?? Yep, am strong and focussed, would s services recommend...or is there a procedure to follow thanks!

basically any child with an attendance record of 80% or less would be flagged to you and how you deal with this would depend on whether these were authorised or unauthorised absences.

authorised absence generally means that the parent has provided a reason for abscence and the school has acepted this reason.

unauthorised is where no valid reason has been given.

although you hear alot aboout it in the papers it can take years of poor attendance before it gets as far as court. In one case i dealt with a child attended school for a total of 4 weeks in two years and it still took over two years for it to go to court.

Connortaceptive, would it include such issues such as if appropriate the child being on the SEN register? Would I deal directly with parents, classteacher or headteachers? how do they monitor boarderline 80%...so would it be a case of ringing schools to see who's in or not??
I have worked in mainstream primary for a number of years and have a degree in education, so while I feel confident achademically and am very interested in the 'social aspect' of education, it would be a exciting and new challenge for me!

Could be wrong, but I thought you had to be a qualified social worker to be an EWO?

You would deal directly with head teacher, unless they have a member off staff who deals with attendance. Usually the EWO visits a school once a week to get an update on who's an issue. It isn't alway issues to deal with attendance so be prepared to deal with a lot of child protection issues too.

You will have to deal with parents ALOT, making home visits, sometimes cold calling. Don't expect to be welomed with open arms though!

There is so much cross over with other agencies that it is so hard to clearly define the role.

Yes i think EWO's generally do hold a social workers qualification, but this may be a trainee post??

Lets hope I get an interview!
Are there any publications or somewhere I could research the job more??

You would also deal with issuing licences to children taking part in dance school/amdram and professional performances.

I think the best way to go would be to phone the LEA and ask if there is an EWO who is willing to have a meeting with you to discuss the career; maybe a team manager.

It's good to get a real understanding of this kind of job I think, because although an EWO isn't a named social worker for children as such, they still have to deal with some very thorny and upsetting and difficult family issues, so it may be more full-on than it sounds. Sorry if that sounds off putting - I'm not an EWO so don't listen to me! But I've worked with them a fair bit in the past.

You're right Honoria there is definately a strong social work aspect to the job.

Talking to an EWO about the post is a very good idea.