Qualified Habilitation Specialist

The Habilitation Specialist enables children and young people with a vision impairment to live the life they choose by delivering specialist services that enable them to become more mobile and independent.

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.
• Participate in and, as necessary organise extra-curricular activities for CYP with vision impairments as part of their habilitation training, including occasional residential events.
• Conduct environmental accessibility audits of educational, recreational, and work experience settings, and compile written reports with recommendations to assist with the inclusion and safety of learners with vision impairment.
• Liaise and make regular contact with other relevant statutory and voluntary agencies in order to support the development of habilitation skills.
• Lead, inspire and mentor trainee staff to achieve agreed objectives within available resources.
• Have a technical understanding of the needs of CYP in relation to the range of current products and services available from Guide Dogs and partner agencies with whom we work.
• Input and maintain records within given time frames and ensure our Data Protection policy is adhered to.
• Plan ongoing reviews of CYP’s progress in relation to work programme objectives.
• Maintain a healthy, safe, and secure teaching and learning environment and to act in accordance with all relevant policies and procedures – Guide Dogs and partner agencies.
• Advise on appropriate technologies to support independence and integrate technology into service delivery.
• Any other activities relevant to the role that will enable blind and partially sighted children and young people to become independent and mobile.

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.

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 offence, 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.