Senior Speech and Language Therapy Assistant (Band 4) in Wallington inWallington PUBLISHED FRI 13 DEC 2024 Jump to job information section

Cognus Therapies are a thriving multidisciplinary team of speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, teachers, practitioners and therapy assistants who support children and young people aged 4 25 years in mainstream schools, colleges, and specialist settings within the London Borough of Sutton and surrounding boroughs. We work with children and young people with a variety of special educational needs, e.g. Autism, Deafness, Down Syndrome, Developmental Language Disorder, PMLD, MLD, Dyslexia and many more and encourage all our therapists to gain experience and expertise across a range of specialisms.

We are seeking an enthusiastic senior speech and language therapy assistant to join our friendly and supportive team. You will need to have experience of working in education settings with children/ young people with special educational needs and a relevant qualification related to speech and language or occupational therapy will be expected.

Cognus Therapies is owned by the London Borough of Sutton and forms part of Cognus Limited who are the providers for special educational needs services within the borough.

Cognus Therapies provides a robust supervision framework with all posts receiving Managerial and Clinical Supervision. Regular time is allocated for Continuing Professional Development.

Own transport an advantage but not essential.

Working within a multidisciplinary team of speech and language therapists and occupational therapists, the post holder will have the opportunity to work within specified local schools and/or specialist provisions within primary, secondary and post-16 settings.

Supporting staff/ parents/families with children and young people with Speech, Language & Communication Needs under the supervision of a Therapist.

Managing a caseload to ensure that intended outcomes are delivered within agreed service standards, under the supervision of a Therapist.

All offers of employment are subject to successful completion of recruitment formalities which includes an enhanced DBS check. These checks must have been completed prior to commencement of employment. We expect our staff to have due regard for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and to follow the child protection procedures adopted by the Company and the Local Safeguarding Childrens Board.

About us

Under the supervision of a speech and language therapist to undertake a caseload of children/young people to include:

Responsibility for maintaining a caseload of children, following their SaLT assessment and devising treatment activities based on therapy goals set by the therapist, in line with appropriate developmental stages.

To complete appropriate informal assessments/ questionnaires under the direction of a speech and language therapist with individual children/ young people

Writing and reviewing therapy targets for the caseload and sharing this with families and staff

Support staff with therapy advice and therapy demonstrations within the classroom

To participate in the training of staff/ parents to deliver speech and language therapy programmes

Implement and evaluate delegated therapy interventions for children/ young people feeding back to the therapist.

Independently organise the SaLTA therapy timetable with school staff within the setting

Maintain children's/ young people's files to a high standard in line with Cognus therapies standard operating procedures

To have responsibility for devising and producing high quality programmes, resources and visuals as required for speech and language therapy interventions and embedding therapy in the education setting

To keep up to date with clinical developments by attending regular training and CPD

To have responsibility fordevising and producing high-quality Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) resources using specialist applications such as Boardmaker.

• Specific Duties:

  To advise and support school staff on the education of children and young people with therapy needs regarding:

  Appropriate differentiation of and access to the curriculum.

  Promotion of effective inclusion of children and young people into all aspects of the school curriculum.

  Specialist strategies and approaches to support access to learning and social and emotional development.

  To collaborate with school staff to develop an Individual Education Plan/Provision Map where appropriate.

  To participate in the planning, delivery and evaluation of training sessions for schools and educational providers as appropriate.

  To maintain effective liaison with all partners e.g. parents, professionals in Education, Health, Social Care and other Services with particular regard to Safeguarding and best practice:

  To attend team meetings as required.

  To attend clinical and managerial supervision sessions.

  To track and monitor data to provide evidence of the impact of intervention and use this to plan further programmes of intervention.

  To liaise with parents/ carers and schools and attend multi-agency meetings as required.

  To promote robust Transition arrangements for pupils with therapy needs including:

  Collaboration with a range of partner agencies to create effective Transition support for specific children and young people.

  To contribute to collaborative working between all specialist SEN teams by:

  Effective liaison with the Team Manager and lead therapist.