East Sussex Supported Employment Forum Terms of Reference
Aim of East Sussex Supported Employment Forum
The East Sussex Supported Employment Forum is the strategic body for supported employment, with the key aim of ensuring all young people with special educational needs, adults with a learning disability and autistic people in East Sussex have the opportunity to secure meaningful paid employment.
Main responsibilities
The East Sussex Supported Employment Forum (SEF) is a cross-sector partnership committed to championing inclusive employment for young people (aged 16+) and adults with additional needs across East Sussex.
The Forum aims to:
- Promote supported employment pathways
- Influence local policy and strategy
- Share best practice and opportunities
- Strengthen partnerships and collaboration
- Celebrate successes and monitor outcomes
- Align with national guidance and quality frameworks, including those from the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi) and the British Association of Supported Employment (BASE), to ensure inclusive, person-centred practice
Priorities for 2025–2026
The Forum’s key priorities for 2025–2026 are to:
1. Launch and promote the Parent & Carer Toolkit and the Employer Toolkit
2. Support members and employers in liaising with Access to Work
3. Recruit and support inclusive employers across East Sussex
4. Deliver joint training sessions and apply for collaborative funding opportunities
Key Principles
- The Forum’s work is underpinned by the following principles:
- Co-production – valuing lived experience and shared decision-making
- Collaboration – working together across sectors for greater impact
- Inclusion – ensuring equity and accessibility for all
- Action-oriented delivery – turning plans into measurable outcomes
- Evidence-informed practice – using data and research to shape delivery
How East Sussex Supported Employment Forum will work
The East Sussex Supported Employment Forum will act as the strategic body for supported employment in the county and will:
- meet 3 times per year with additional workshops/training to meet the requirements of the national Internships Work programme (where needed)
- ensure agenda and background papers are sent to members at least five working days prior to meetings
- circulate minutes of actions and decisions to members for approval no later than ten working days following each meeting, and actions will be monitored as a standing item at subsequent meetings
Membership, decision-making and secretariat
Membership
Members of East Sussex Supported Employment Forum will include representatives from the following areas (see Appendix 2 for organisations)
- County wide supported employment providers
- Local education providers – to include schools, colleges, training providers.
- Voluntary and Community Sector • Employer Champions
- Local Authority – to include Children’s Services, Adult Social Care, and Skills & Employability
- Employment Support Services e.g., DWP
- Careers related services/Information Advice & Guidance
- Parents/Carers*
- Service Users*
*To promote collaborative planning, wider engagement and effect change locally, specific forum events and workshops will be aimed at parent/carers and young people/adults and with employers. Acknowledging that these key stakeholder groups may need a targeted approach and a different method and means to securing effective engagement/participation.
Decision-making
Members of the East Sussex Supported Employment Forum will show commitment to:
- attend meetings where possible and if not able to attend, send an appropriate representative and/or apologies with any updates to share.
- input in to and agree the annual SEF action plan in line with aims and priorities set out above which will incorporate the Internship Works objectives.
- input in to and agree agenda items for each meeting.
- bring forward issues and ideas for discussion and decision.
- feed in and out from the organisations that they represent to ensure relevant input to the meeting.
- share provision updates to ensure this is reflected in the Local Offer and to support appropriate signposting/mapping of services.
- share data regarding numbers of young people and adults accessing provision and destination/ employment outcomes, which will help inform and shape good practice, as well as identify gaps.
Structure and Governance
- Chair: Andrea Randall-Smith (CEO, Little Gate)
- Administration: Karen Blease (Little Gate)
- Working Groups: Formed around key priorities (e.g. Employer Engagement, Training,
Autism Inclusion) - Decision-Making: Consensus-based, with proposals circulated in advance of meetings
- Meeting Frequency: Quarterly meetings, with additional working group sessions as required
- Review Cycle: Terms of Reference reviewed annually
The Chair will:
- ensure each meeting is planned effectively, conducted accordingly and that matters are dealt with in an orderly and efficient manner.
- Ensure that all members of the SEF, and the provision they represent, are valued and that members are courteous and respectful of each other and each other’s provision.
- chair meetings, introduce objectives and, together with the Co-chair, ensure clear decisions are reached.
- Ensure all agenda items are discussed and that the meeting starts/finish on time.
- Summarise key points, outcomes and actions at the end of each agenda item so members are clear.
- ensure that all representatives have a fair and equal opportunity to contribute to the discussions.
- together with the Co-chair, agree all East Sussex Supported Employment Forum papers and minutes before circulation.
Appendix 1 - Internships Work
In 2022 the Government reinforced its commitment to supporting more young people with SEND into employment. The Department for Education is funding a three-year programme to strengthen Supported Internship provision in England.
The programme, titled Internships Work, is delivered by the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi), the British Association of Supported Employment (BASE) and DFN Project SEARCH and includes the follow key elements:
1.Support to local authorities
NDTi will be supporting Local Authorities to establish and develop SEND employment forums, as well as administrating and monitoring Section 14 grants to support them with this programme.
2.Engaging & supporting employers
DFN Project SEARCH will lead on engaging employers and support them to offer high quality work placements by providing information, advice and training that enable growth in internships and job opportunities.
3.Establishing a Supported Internships Quality Assurance Framework (SIQAF)
BASE will be lead on establishing a sustainable process to improve the quality of Supported Internship provision, using a Quality Assurance framework. The Supported Employment Quality Framework will provide organisations with support on completing self-assessments and auditing so that they can work towards achieving the proposed quality kitemark that shows that they are providing true Supported Internships that lead to real jobs.
4.Investing in training
BASE will also lead on delivering Job Coach & Systematic Instruction training to over 700 job coaches. The bespoke training has been developed in line with the Supported Employment National Occupational Standards (NOS) and reflect the key principle to training job coaches in the latest Supported Internships Guidance.
Appendix 2 - East Sussex Core Members
(To be reviewed and updated annually)
- Little Gate Supported Employment
- East Sussex College Group
- Plumpton College
- St John’s College
- The Oaks Specialist College
- The Parchment Trust
- Steps To Work (ESCC)
- Team Domenica
- Glyne Gap School
- Saxon Mount
- The Mount Camphill Community
- ISEND Post 16 & INMS (ESCC)
- British Association for Supported Employment
- Adult Social Care Learning Disability Commissioning (ESCC)
- Amaze
- De La Warr Pavilion
- DFN Project Search
- DWP
- Youth Employability Service (CXK)
- East Sussex Careers Hub (Careers Enterprise Company & ESCC)
- Participation & Skills – Education Division (ESCC)
- NDTi