Looked After Children Team

The Looked After Children (LAC) Team is an Inter-Agency Organisation, funded by Shropshire Local Authority (LA), Social Care and Health and by Shropshire Primary Care Trust. The team promotes the education of children looked after by Shropshire Council (children in public care).

The Team provides services for Shropshire’s children in care wherever they are living or educated. Team members work closely with colleagues in the Children and Young People's Services Directorate to monitor the children's attendance and educational progress. They also support, consult, advise and act as advocates for this most vulnerable group of children. Some direct teaching is undertaken by LAC teaching staff.

The Team is made up of:

• Team Leader/Senior Educational Psychologist
• Education Welfare Officers
• Teachers
• Senior Mental Health Workers
• Looked After Children’s Nurse
• Team Secretaries
• Connexions worker

The team is line managed by the SEN Inter-Agency Education Officer. All LAC Team members use holistic, preventative approaches with early intervention whenever possible. We offer consultative services to key workers, including advice to carers and residential staff and to social workers. We work to support the stability of education and care placements, to promote attendance at school, and to reduce the need for special placements by the provision of specialist services for young people, parents and carers within Shropshire.

The LA has adopted a strategy to clarify the process by which other authorities make approaches to Shropshire LA for educational placements, either directly or by private care organisations. Please see the attached document.

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