Habilitation Service Manager

Guide Dogs - Where Every Role Makes a Difference

Come and join us as a proactive and purpose‑led Habilitation Service Manager and be part of something life‑changing - helping people with sight loss live the life they choose.

As a Habilitation Service Manager at Guide Dogs, you’ll lead the operational delivery of Habilitation Services for children and young people across Northern Ireland. You’ll ensure services are consistent, person‑centred, and aligned with national standards, working closely with your team to deliver high‑quality support that truly meets the needs of families. The Habilitation Service Manager will be an expert at collaborating with internal teams and external partners in education, health and social care. You’ll champion safe practice and compliance, drive continuous improvement through insight and feedback, and ensure that every part of the service plays its role in achieving our purpose.

You’ll be working Monday to Friday between the hours of 9am to 5pm. Some flexibility may be required to work occasionally outside of core hours.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the operational delivery of Habilitation Services across Northern Ireland, ensuring consistency, quality, and a strong person centred approach.
• Develop and support your team, fostering high performance, shared learning and confident, professional practice.
• Embed robust safeguarding practices, ensuring children, young people and families receive safe, appropriate support at all times in line with Guide Dogs standards.
• Work collaboratively with internal teams and external partners to coordinate and enhance service delivery including commissioned work.
• Use insight, data and feedback to monitor performance, understand needs, and drive continuous improvement.
• Plan and prioritise resources effectively, ensuring your team is equipped to deliver services that meet strategic and operational aims.
• Champion operational excellence, ensuring national and Guide Dogs standards, organisational processes and quality expectations are consistently met.

You:

You’ll have a confident and collaborative approach to managing operational delivery and supporting a high-performing team. You’ll enjoy working in a collaborative and innovative environment with a dedicated focus on promoting professional best practice, whilst being committed to leading a team that transforms lives and supports people with sight loss holistically. You’ll act with integrity and honesty in everything you do.

Skills and Competencies:

• Strong leadership and people development, creating a supportive, high‑performing team culture.
• Excellent communication skills, adapting style to different audiences and building effective professional relationships.
• Robust safeguarding awareness, confidently embedding safe practice and responding appropriately to concerns.
• Ability to plan, organise and prioritise, balancing multiple demands while maintaining high standards.
• Data‑driven decision making, interpreting operational information to monitor performance and guide improvement.
• Collaborative working, partnering effectively across internal teams and external agencies.
• Commitment to person‑centred practice, ensuring services meet the needs of children, young people and their families.

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.