Inclusive Childcare Support Service 2022

Description

The City of Edinburgh Council (the Council) recognises the importance of supporting the inclusion of children and young people, from 0-18 years, with additional support needs in Care Inspectorate registered mainstream childcare settings which enables their parents/carers to continue or return to employment, training or education. The Inclusive Childcare Support Service has been established for over 10 years and is based on a ‘reducing dependency increasing capacity’ model. The service works closely with a provider to build staff skills, knowledge and confidence to include children and young people with additional support needs in their setting. The service can provide direct support to a child and young person through the deployment of support workers who work alongside staff to create an inclusive environment within normal staff ratios (as appropriate) or allocate funding to a setting that has been assessed by the service as requiring additional staff to support a child and young person. This is an open tender procedure with the Light Touch Regime applied. The City of Edinburgh Council requires a Service Provider to support the building of capacity of partner provider childcare settings. The service delivery is based on a ‘reducing dependency increasing capacity’ model. Support is provided to childcare settings to build staff skills, knowledge, and confidence to include children and young people with additional support needs. Where individual children need additional 1-1 adult time, the Service Provider will assess applications and offer funding for additional staffing support as appropriate.