The role of the Designated Social Care Officer DSCO for SEND

Role of the Designated Social Care Officer (DSCO) for SEND
Sorrel Norwood, Project Management Lead, CDC
Since 2017/2018 following a series of Action Learning Sets, the Council for Disabled Children has been working on the development of the role of the Designated Social Care Officer (DSCO) as an equivalent of the existing DCO/DMO roles in Health. In the recent SEND and AP Green Paper, the role’s potential was recognised and it was strongly encouraged that the role should be recommended in the Code of Practice. To support local areas considering adopting this approach or in the early stages of implementation, this workshop will cover the evaluation of the role to date (including an overview of the theory of change we co-developed with the DfE), feedback on the role’s value from existing DSCOs and examples of the role’s impact in practice.