Delegates will be welcomed with a short address from Simon Marshall, Director of Children’s Services at Together for Children, Sunderland.

Our conference event will be facilitated by Alice McColl, Development Lead for Children and Young People at the National Development Team for Inclusion.

Alice will guide us through the day, as well as providing some national context to set the scene for the day’s events in her short talk, “Preparing for Adulthood: We’re all in it together.”

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Professor Sarah Soppitt is a criminology professor with an extensive body of work and a strong reputation in applied criminological research. With over twenty years of experience, she has contributed to criminal justice research, consultancy, and evaluations on both a national and international scale. Her work has primarily focused on issues related to justice-involved young people. Recently, she has concentrated on serious youth violence and child criminal exploitation, collaborating with Dr Rebecca Oswald and Dr Samantha Walker.

Currently, Sarah and her colleagues are engaged in several research projects, including examining child-first approaches for young people involved in serious youth violence (funded by the British Academy), evaluating support for children and areas affected by serious youth violence and anti-social behaviour (Durham PCC), and investigating the use of threat-to-life warnings for under-18s. Together, they have developed the Safer Children Network (NE), a platform designed to facilitate knowledge transfer for professionals working with young people impacted by or at risk of serious youth violence.

Sarah Soppitt: Website, LinkedIn

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Fiona has worked in children’s and community services in County Durham for over 30 years.  Her career has spanned the voluntary, community and statutory sectors, starting in youth work, moving to adult and community education, SureStart, Children’s Trusts and, in more recent years, working within early years education, equalities and inclusion.

Fiona holds a MA in Leadership and Management of Integrated Children’s Services and has worked extensively with local, regional and national partners, including the Council for Disabled Children and the LGA Peer Review programme.

In her current role, she leads the Early Years SEND agenda for Durham County Council and supports Durham’s Virtual School in its work with children in care and those with a social worker in their early years. 

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Lisa Ingleby is an Alternative Provision & Inclusion Advisor, Education Durham, whose role includes full oversight of the use of alternative provision by schools across County Durham, including the development and implementation of a quality assurance framework to monitor curriculum provision by referring schools. This also includes developing inclusive practices within alternative provision through collaborative work with other local authorities.

Lisa has extensive experience of leading pastoral provision within secondary and special schools at a senior level, including development of systems to underpin successful transition arrangements across the primary and secondary phase as well as supporting our schools who demonstrate excellent inclusive practices, to achieve the Inclusion Quality Mark.

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In this session, delegates are invited to reflect on the morning speakers through table discussions and share their local good practice. Each table is asked to record any questions they would like to ask colleagues using our submit a question form, as well as using the form to record where LAs have examples of good practice worth sharing more widely, along with any key themes or reflections discussed.

We are privileged to be joined at the event by a parent of a young person with SEND, facilitated by the Ivison Trust. There will be an opportunity for questions at the end of their talk.

Please ensure you are fully respectful of the experiences of our speakers and their right to anonymity, and there must be no photographs taken.

The North Tyneside Team will be sharing their good practice and learning, with an opportunity for questions at the end.

Mark Barrett, Senior Manager – Employment and Skills: Mark has worked for North Tyneside Council for 19 years and currently manages the North Tyneside Employment and Skills Service, which includes the Connexions Service, Adult Learning Service and Employability Service, which includes the North Tyneside Working Well Hubs.

James Anderson, Programme Manager (Connexions): James has worked for North Tyneside Council since 2023, having previously been employed at Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council. James manages a team of Connexions Advisers working in schools across the Borough and specialises on SEND including managing our Supported Internship projects.

Bridgett Thornton, Programme Manager (SEND & Life Skills): Bridgett has worked for North Tyneside Council for 11 years within the Adult Learning Service. Bridgett manages programmes for young people with SEND and adults with learning difficulties or disabilities. Bridgett led on the design and delivery of the highly regarded ‘Ignite your Potential’ Study Programme, which was rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted in June 2023.

Above, left to right: Mark Barrett, James Anderson, Bridgett Thornton

Our co-hosts Durham will be in the spotlight again, this time to share their good practice around Supported Employment. There will be an opportunity for questions at the end of Helen’s talk.

Helen’s career has focussed on helping young people to make successful transitions from compulsory education into post 16 education, employment or training. She began her working life in the Careers Service in the South East, specialising in supporting young people with special educational needs. She moved to the North East, working for Tyneside Training and Enterprise Council (TEC) and then as a Director in the Learning and Skills Councils (LSCs) in County Durham and the Tees Valley, specialising in developing and funding training and learning opportunities for young people. Helen spent 5 years working for the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) as their Head of Business Development for the north of England. With NAS, Helen was involved in developing national models for Higher Apprenticeships, improving Apprenticeship quality and creating innovative Apprenticeship information, advice and guidance.

Helen has worked for Durham County Council since 2014. She developed and managed DurhamWorks, the Council’s largest ESF programme which has provided support to over 17,000 16-24 year olds who are economically inactive or unemployed. Since 2022, Helen has been the Strategic Manager for Progression and Learning. The Progression and Learning Service sits within the Council’s Education Service. Helen leads all the DurhamWorks programmes, DurhamEnable, the Council’s Supported Employment programme for adults with learning difficulties, disabilities and autism and DurhamLearn, the Council’s Adult Learning Service. Helen is the Employment Support lead for the Council, working closely with the North East Combined Authority on the development and implementation of the new Employment and Skills Strategy. She is also the Council’s lead for the Adult Skills Fund and the new national supported employment programme, Connect to Work. Outside of work, Helen has been the Chair of the Board of a seven school Multi Academy Trust for six years.

This final period of reflection and discussion encourages delegates to consider key takeaways from the event for themselves and their organisation, as well as potential future collaboration on a regional level. Your individual views and suggestions should then be recorded using our feedback form. Our events are fully funded to support regional development, and in return all we ask is that delegates complete the form before leaving the event. Thank you for helping us plan and design future programme activity to ensure our work can add maximum value for our region.

A thank you to our speakers and delegates, with closing remarks from Simon Marshall, Director of Children’s Services, Together for Children (Sunderland).