Career Change and Rehoming Specialist (Community)

This is a home-based role with the expectation of travel throughout Wales and South West England (including Bournemouth, Bristol & Bath) as and when required, travel will be required to support volunteer training, assessment of dogs, carry out in-person visits to volunteers and applicant homes, and build a strong network of volunteers across the area.

The Career Change and Rehoming Specialist (Community) helps people with sight loss live the life they choose by managing the flow of dogs that need to be placed into alternative working careers outside of Guide Dogs, into new homes and retired guide dogs. This community based role manages the full journey of each dog and customer, from withdrawal or retirement through matching to aftercare, with a strong emphasis on partnership working, volunteer and customer support, and placing complex or career-change dogs into appropriate homes or alternative working roles outside of Guide Dogs.

Career Change services encompass two functions; a Career Change and Rehoming Specialists On Site team, and Career Change and Rehoming Specialists Community based teams. These two teams work collaboratively with the rest of operations to support retired guide dogs, retired breeding stock and dogs that are not best suited to Guide Dog training, Guide Dog services or breeding programme.

Key Responsibilities

Caseload Management (Dogs and Customers)

• Manage all aspects of the dog and customer journey for career change and rehoming.
• Monitor and maximize the psychological, physical and emotional wellbeing of dogs within the career change and rehoming caseload.
• Collaborate with internal teams and volunteers to ensure correct career change and rehoming criteria.

• Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of dogs available for rehoming, working across the career change and rehoming team to support dogs and Career Change and Rehoming Specialists from other regions to minimise the time it takes to rehome every dog.

• Communicate with stakeholders about the career change and homing process.
• Identify dogs suitable for alternative careers outside of Guide Dogs.
• Support the development and maintenance of the dog's health and behaviour.
  
  

Customer Service

• Deliver excellent customer service, discussing career change and rehoming applications and matching dogs to appropriate career roles or homes.
• Introduce dogs to potential career roles or homes and provide accurate information regarding a dog’s temperament and health.
• Provide pre and post career change and rehoming support to new homes.
• Manage a portfolio of applicants and organisations and ensure the right career change match for each dog.
• Lead and support volunteers in career change and rehoming fostering.

• Support a caseload of guide dog owners, and ex guide dog owners with retired dogs by monitoring and supporting those dogs to enjoy their retirement in the home they have come to know and love. Working closely with health colleagues to report upon any concerns, communicating with colleagues as appropriate.
• Liaise with existing Guide Dog Owners (GDOs) when they are retiring their dogs or early withdrawn dogs using person centred working to minimise the emotional impact during this process.
• Work with volunteers within the area by providing training and education on routine canine health care and dog management.
• Work closely and foster relationships with any organisations identified as appropriate to repurpose or rehome our more complex and challenging dogs. 

Volunteer Management

• Effectively manage a scheme of volunteers to foster dogs during career change and rehoming .
• Collaborate with internal teams to ensure appropriate foster matches and movements are completed.
• Support Guide Dog service through minimising blockers within the dog supply chain.
• Identify and deliver training and development needs of fosterers to maximise skill set within the scheme.
• Support fosterers with dog training and management plans to improve the matching criteria for each dog where required.

Finance/Legal Aspects

• Maintain accurate records in line with GDPR and Guide Dog process requirements.
• Collaborate with managers to set appropriate tariffs and support packages.
• Handle sales and donations from career change and rehoming families.
• Ensure all financial transactions are completed compliantly.
• Assist in promoting dogs available for career change and rehoming.
  
  

Performance and Development

• Adhere to national standards and deliver metric-driven performance.
• Engage in continuous professional development.
• Identify opportunities for continuous improvement.

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.

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].

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 as part of this application process, so please be prepared to write your answers to these questions.

If you want to know more about the teams who work at Guide Dogs, you can find it on our Careers Page

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

Guide Dogs welcomes applications from all sections of the community and actively encourages diversity to maximise achievements, creativity and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or nationality. 

As a Disability Confident Employer, we are proud, whenever possible, to offer an interview to all candidates that meet our selection criteria, and who indicate they wish their application to be considered under our Disability Confident interview commitment. For more details, visit our careers site.

If you are successful you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK via our digital ID checking supplier; in addition, we cannot offer visa sponsorship at this time.

Every day is different at Guide Dogs. And no person with sight loss is the same. We work side by side, on our sites and in the community, in schools and on our streets, supporting people to live the life they choose. Our staff therefore also work in different ways to support the delivery of our life changing work.

Safeguarding

Guide Dogs is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children, young people and adults at risk of harm with whom we work. We expect all our employees and volunteers to fully share this commitment.

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, taking into account the nature of the offense, its relevance to the role, and the time that has passed since the incident. We encourage all candidates to disclose relevant information, and we assure you that it will be handled confidentially and fairly.

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.

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