Each school in Nottinghamshire is allocated a named Education Welfare Officer (EWO) or Education Welfare Assistant (EWA) who work closely with the school to promote and improve school attendance. This is carried out through meetings with key school staff, home visits, liaison with other agencies and the instigation of legal action in appropriate cases. The amount of time allocated to each school is determined by a deployment formula, taking into account levels of attendance and numbers of persistent absentees.
The Education Welfare Service (EWS) carries out the functions of:
- enforcement of school attendance
- licensing and monitoring of child employment and work in entertainment
- support and training for schools about their safeguarding children responsibilities
- tracking and re-engagement back into education of those children who go missing.
The Service is led by a Principal EWO and is organised into three teams, working across the geographical areas of:
- Ashfield and Mansfield, tel: 01623 433433
- Bassetlaw and Newark, tel: 01623 433433
- Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe, tel: 0115 8546000.
Each EWS team is managed by a Senior EWO (Manager) and includes a Senior EWO (Practitioner) who is the court officer, fieldwork EWOs, a specialist EWO who works with Looked After Children and EWAs. In addition there is an Assistant Safeguarding Children Officer and a Children Missing Education Officer.
Service projects include:
- Work with primary schools – delivered mainly by EWAs who work with targeted primary schools, through the use of whole school assemblies, story books, inter-class and inter-school competitions and case work.
- Work with persistent absence schools – there a number of secondary schools where the level of persistent absence is significant. EWOs work with these schools to address persistent absence and have developed new resources to assist schools in addressing this problem.
- Work with Looked After Children – specialist EWOs work with this group of vulnerable young people to support them in accessing their educational entitlement and achieving to their best ability. This work is carried out in a multi-agency way.
- Safeguarding Children – delivery of advice, guidance and support to schools on individual safeguarding issues. Delivery of basic awareness training to schools and governors on their safeguarding responsibilities. Involvement in the investigation and management of allegations made against school staff.
- Children Missing Education – the identification, tracking and re-engagement of children who go missing. Working with other key agencies to ensure that all children who live in Nottinghamshire and are missing from education are known about and work is undertaken to re-engage them back into education provision.
Further ‘Good Practice Guidance’ can be obtained directly from the Education Welfare Service on a range of initiatives.
