Sighted Guide Training Officer

This is a home-based role, working 35 hours per week and candidates will need to be based within Newcastle upon Tyne, County Durham or Northumberland as this role requires regular travel across this region with travel across to Cumbria. Further occasional travel and overnight stays around the UK may also be required, so you’ll need to be flexible to work outside of standard hours to meets the needs of the community and deliver training where required.  Expenses for travel within the region will be covered, however if you live outside of this area commuting costs will not be paid.

In person interviews for this role are planned to take place W/C 7th December. 

You’re passionate about creating a more inclusive society for people with vision impairment.  You have experience in delivering training, building community networks, and supporting volunteers.

As Sighted Guide Training Officer, you’ll play a crucial role in supporting customers through their journey by delivering training and awareness sessions to local organisations, Friends and Family groups, and corporate partners. You’ll work to create a more inclusive environment for people with vision impairment by equipping individuals and organisations with essential Sighted Guide skills.

You’ll be responsible for ensuring the successful delivery of Sighted Guide training to a range of audiences, engaging and inspiring participants in every session. You’ll work closely with the Vision Rehabilitation Team to support customers in achieving their mobility goals and provide tailored Friends & Family Sighted Guide training to their support networks.

A key aspect of your role will be building and managing networks with community and corporate organisations, developing training partnerships, and delivering high-quality awareness sessions.  You’ll work closely with Service Marketing to ensure outreach efforts are targeted and effective.

You’ll also lead a team of volunteer trainers, ensuring they are highly trained, engaged, and supported in delivering sessions. This includes managing a pipeline of new volunteers, mentoring their development, and ensuring all volunteers meet the high standards required for training delivery.  In addition, you’ll handle local training referrals, ensuring sessions align with Guide Dogs’ services and objectives, while maintaining contact with community networks and training partners.

You’ll thrive in this role if you have experience in training delivery, volunteer management, and community engagement. Strong presentation and facilitation skills are essential, as well as the ability to build relationships and engage a variety of stakeholders.  You should hold a Level 3 Award in Education and Training or being willing to work towards attaining this. It would be beneficial if you held a Train the Trainer qualification and/or a Level 3 Assessor Award.

You should be confident in delivering training to both small and large audiences, adapting sessions to meet the needs of different learning styles. Your organisational and communication skills will ensure that training sessions run smoothly, and that relationships with partners and volunteers are well maintained.

Benefits

We wouldn’t be able to change the lives of people with sight loss without our people. That’s why it’s important for us to provide a variety of benefits that reward our colleagues in a way that suits them and recognises the hard work and contribution that they make.

• 26 days annual leave. After three years of continuous employment, this increases to 28 days plus bank holidays.
• Real Living Wage Employer
• Flex pot - equal to a proportion of your annual salary to use on our wide variety of flexible benefits
• The option to buy and sell annual leave
• Discounts and cash-back scheme
• Excellent pension scheme (We will match your pension contributions plus 2% up to a maximum of 9% employer contribution)
• And lots more!

For high volumes of applications, we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than advertised.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

Behind Every Guide Dog Is Someone Like You - We’re passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that celebrates and values diversity. Bring your whole self to work regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. We don’t want you to ‘fit’ our culture, we want you to enrich it. 

How to apply

Further details on the full role are attached below. When you are ready to apply, submit an online application form via this page.  Please note - If you are successful you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK via our digital ID checking supplier.  We cannot offer visa sponsorship at this time.

As part of your application ensure you provide evidence and examples of how your skills & experience meet the criteria as set out in the attached job description. You will also be asked to complete a few job-specific questions, so please be prepared to write your answers to these questions.

If you choose to use AI tools to assist in completing your application, please use them appropriately.  We value authenticity. If you want to stand out, using a generic AI-generated response isn’t going to separate you from the crowd. This is your time to shine and showcase your unique skills, personality, and thought processes!  You can find our full statement on the use of AI to complete applications on our careers website.

If you would like to have an informal conversation about the role before applying, or require any accessibility support to apply, our friendly recruitment team is ready and waiting to help. Call them on 0118 3540345 or drop an email to [email protected].

Safer recruitment

Guide Dogs follow Safer Recruitment practices to ensure we are safeguarding the vulnerable people we work with. As part of this, we require a full work history with any gaps accounted for & a minimum of 2 professional referee details fully covering the past 5 years. If you are applying for a disclosure role, please note that you will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check and sign up to the DBS update service.

At Guide Dogs, we believe in fair and equitable hiring practices. A criminal record will not automatically disqualify an applicant from consideration for a position. Each case will be evaluated individually. We encourage all candidates to disclose relevant information, and we assure you that it will be handled confidentially and fairly.