Habilitation Specialist

This role is 35 hours per week, Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm. However, flexibility is required to occasionally work outside of core hours and support weekend events when needed. The role involves extensive travel across the region and beyond, covering areas from North Wales through to Wolverhampton, Stoke, Liverpool and the Midlands, with Shrewsbury as your nominated office base. Travel may be required on a daily basis, with approximately one day per week allocated for administration, which can be undertaken from either Shrewsbury or home.

Part-time applications will be considered, and we welcome interest from candidates who can meet the requirements of the role on a flexible working basis.

We would also be interested in hearing from qualified Rehabilitation Specialists who are willing to undertake the top-up Habilitation (HAB) qualification, where required.

Applicants will be located within a commutable distance of the region.

Unleash your potential - Your Career. Their Independence

Come and join us as a supportive and confident Qualified Habilitation Specialist and be part of something life‑changing - helping people with sight loss live the life they choose.

As a Qualified Habilitation Specialist at Guide Dogs, you’ll deliver specialist mobility and independence training to children and young people, including those with complex needs, helping them build the skills they need to confidently navigate the world. The Qualified Habilitation Specialist will be an expert in assessing individual needs, designing tailored habilitation programmes, and providing practical, person-centred support in a range of settings. Our Habilitation Specialists play a huge part in ensuring everything we do enables us to deliver on our purpose and exceed expectations.

Key Responsibilities

• To holistically assess the needs and capabilities of children and young people (CYP) with a vision impairment (VI) and produce appropriate person-centred training programmes and recommendations as required.
• Plan, implement and review habilitation training programmes for CYP with vision impairment (including those with complex needs).
• Deliver specialist habilitation (mobility and independence) services which support the Guide Dogs strategic objectives and bring independence and freedom to CYP with a vision impairment, across your region or nationally.
• Write reports, maintain accurate records, and monitor CYP’s progress against set training programme goals, adapting these as required to ensure they continue to meet the CYP’s individual needs and identify any further training requirements.
• Deliver habilitation awareness training to parents / carers and professionals.
• Provide advice, information and training to parents/carers, professionals including school staff and any others supporting CYP with a vision impairment to promote and ensure reinforcement of training programmes and to raise their awareness of vision impairment and resources available.

You

You’ll have a person-centred and collaborative approach to teaching mobility and independence skills, alongside carrying out assessments and developing tailored support plans. You’ll enjoy working in a variety of settings including home, education and community environments, with a dedicated focus on supporting children and young people to develop confidence and independence, whilst being committed to delivering high-quality, safe and effective services. You’ll act with integrity and honesty in everything you do.

Skills and Competencies

• Qualified as a Habilitation Specialist - please refer to the Essential Education/ Qualifications criteria within the attached Job Description
• Demonstrable post qualifying experience in statutory or voluntary sector.
• Demonstrable experience of teaching mobility and independence skills to individuals with a vision impairment in home, education and/or community settings.
• Demonstrable experience of supporting children and young people (Not necessarily vision impairment related) e.g., Youth Work, in an education setting, brownie or scout leader.
• Proven experience of carrying out access and environmental audits.
• Proven ability to liaise effectively with other professionals / agencies.
• Demonstrable evidence of effective assessment and planning skills.

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.