Qualified Habilitation Specialist

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association; Southampton; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 42,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Real Living Wage Employer

Flex pot for benefits

Buy/sell annual leave

Pension scheme with employer match

Discounts and cash-back

26 days annual leave (28 after 3 years

Job summary

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association is seeking a Qualified Habilitation Specialist to deliver mobility and independence training for children and young people with vision impairment across Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset and beyond. The role involves assessing needs, designing tailored programmes and liaising with families and professionals to ensure safe, effective support.

You will work in home, education and community settings, promoting confidence and independence while contributing to

Qualifications

• Qualified as a Habilitation Specialist.
• Post-qualifying experience in statutory or voluntary sector.
• Experience teaching mobility and independence to individuals with vision impairment in home, education or community settings.
• Experience supporting children and young people in education, youth work, or similar roles.
• Proven experience carrying out access and environmental audits.
• Proven ability to liaise with other professionals and agencies.
• Evidence of effective assessment and planning skills.

Responsibilities

• Holistically assess the needs and capabilities of CYP with vision impairment and produce person-centred training programmes.
• Plan, implement and review habilitation training programmes for CYP with VI (including complex needs).
• Deliver habilitation services that support objectives and promote independence across regions or nationally.
• Write reports, maintain records and monitor CYP progress against goals.
• Deliver habilitation awareness training to parents, carers and professionals.
• Provide advice and training to parents and schools to reinforce learning.

Skills

Person-centred approach

Assessing needs

Programme design

Communication with CYP and parents

Audit and reporting

Liaising with professionals

Education

Habilitation qualification

Job description

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.

This is a full-time position with travel across Wiltshire, Hampshire, Dorset areas and may include travel to the Channel Islands.

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 Job Description available on our careers page.
• 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.

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.

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.