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At West Sussex County Council, we are ambitious for children, families, and our workforce. We are committed to improving outcomes for children through early, inclusive, and coordinated support. Best Start Family Hubs (BSFH) are central to this ambition, bringing together services so families can access the right help at the right time, from pregnancy through to school entry.

The West Sussex Best Start Plan sets out our shared commitment to prevention, early intervention and strong partnerships around families. It is built on a simple belief: when parents and families are supported, children thrive. Whatever a child's background, acting early and working together makes a lasting difference.

Best Start Family Hubs are at the heart of community support, bringing together services for families from pregnancy through to early childhood to ensure every child has the best possible start in life. We offer a welcoming, inclusive environment where parents and carers can access early help, health support, parenting guidance, and opportunities to build confidence and connections within their local community. Working in partnership with health, education, and voluntary services, Best Start focuses on improving outcomes around child development, school readiness, and family wellbeing.

The Best Start Inclusion, Participation & Parenting Lead plays a pivotal leadership role within this system. The post provides strategic and operational leadership across inclusion, participation and parenting services, with a particular focus on ensuring children aged 0-5 with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), developmental differences, emerging needs and disabilities receive timely, coordinated and effective support.

As the senior lead for inclusion across the Best Start Family Hub network, you will shape how services operate across organisational boundaries, driving innovation, consistency and excellence in inclusive practice. You will influence system partners across health, education, SEND, social care and the voluntary and community sector to strengthen early identification, improve pathways of support and ensure children and families experience seamless, joined-up services. This role requires a leader with significant SEND expertise who can champion inclusion, drive service improvement and build a confident workforce capable of delivering outstanding outcomes for children and families.

About the Job

Salary: £55,057 - £58,829 per annum
Working Pattern: Full Time (37 hours)
Contract Length: Permanent
Location: Opportunities available across the county.

As Best Start Inclusion, Participation & Parenting Lead, you will lead and manage senior operational leaders, including the Participation and Parenting Team Manager and Best Start Inclusion Team Managers working across family hubs, outreach locations and community settings. You will be accountable for performance, quality, outcomes and impact across all areas of responsibility, ensuring services deliver measurable improvements for children and families.

A significant element of this role is providing strategic leadership for SEND and inclusion across the Best Start Family Hub system. You will lead the development and implementation of the Best Start Inclusion Practitioner offer, inclusive practice, support the early identification of emerging needs, and ensure children with SEND and their families receive high-quality, accessible and responsive support. You will work closely with SEND, health, education and early years partners to influence policy, practice and service design, ensuring inclusion is embedded across all aspects of delivery.

You will ensure services are designed and delivered to reduce inequalities and improve access for priority groups, particularly children with SEND, those experiencing developmental delay, families facing disadvantage and underrepresented communities. You will confidently influence senior stakeholders, challenge barriers to inclusion and secure collective ownership of outcomes across complex partnerships.

The role focuses on strategic leadership for inclusion, parenting and participation across the Best Start Family Hub system, ensuring delivery is aligned with the Best Start Plan, SEND and Inclusion Strategy, SEND Reforms, Early Years priorities and national policy.

Experience and Skills

Key Skills:

• Demonstrates the ability to provide strategic leadership across complex, multi-agency systems, setting clear direction, aligning partners and driving large-scale transformation to improve outcomes for children and families. Builds effective cross-sector partnerships and secures shared accountability for delivery across health, education, SEND and the voluntary sector.
• Ability to lead and manage multiple programmes and service areas simultaneously, ensuring effective coordination, prioritisation and delivery across a complex portfolio. Maintains oversight of interdependencies and ensure consistent quality and impact across all areas of responsibility.
• Proven ability to use data, insight and evidence to drive improvement and transformation. Able to analyse complex performance information, identify trends and areas for development, and implement changes that deliver measurable improvements in reach, quality and outcome.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to provide clear assurance and reporting to senior leaders and external stakeholders. Able to present complex information in an accessible way, influencing decision-making and supporting strategic oversight across the progamme.
• Ability to manage risk, prioritisation and delivery within a complex and changing environment.
• Demonstrates, sound judgement in balancing competing demands, responding to emerging issues, and ensuring delivery remains focused, safe and aligned to priorities.
• Strong management and leadership skills, with the ability to develop, implement and embed new and emerging services. Able to Lead change effectively, support teams through transition, and ensure new models of delivery are sustainable, high quality and aligned to strategic objectives.

Qualifications and/or experience:

• Degree-level qualification or equivalent experience in early years, education, SEND, public health or a related field.
• Substantial experience of leading large-scale programmes or services across children's or early years systems.
• Experience of working across Local Authority Services, Health, Education and early years providers and Voluntary and community sector.
• Strong knowledge of Early childhood development and school readiness, SEND systems and reform and engagement and participation approaches.

Reward and Benefit

As an employer we recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance, and are rewarded for the work they do.

In addition to working within a great team and a competitive salary you will have access to:

• Access to a generous, defined benefit pension scheme
• A range of flexible working options
• Maternity, paternity, dependency, and adoption leave
• Training and development opportunities, including coaching and mentoring
• A range of discounts giving our staff access to hundreds of offers with the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform
• Discounted membership at selected local sports and fitness centres
• A range of commuting and business travel discount and initiatives

For a full list of the benefits offered to you as a West Sussex County Council employee, you can find this at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further Information

The reference number for this role is CAFHE06448.

For an informal conversation or further information regarding the role, please contact Emma Parker at , or for general queries please reach out to our resourcing team at .

To apply, upload your CV and cover letter explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to an enhanced DBS check, 5 years referencing and a health check.