Unleash your potential - Your Career. Their Independence
Come and join us as a supportive and confident Vision Rehabilitation Specialist (VRS) and be part of something life‑changing - helping people with sight loss live the life they choose.
As a Qualified Vision Rehabilitation Specialist (VRS) at Guide Dogs, you’ll empower and enable people with sight loss to develop the skills, confidence and independence they need to live the life they choose. Through personalised assessment, rehabilitation and wellbeing support, you’ll help individuals adapt to changing circumstances and achieve their goals at home, work and within their communities. The Vision Rehabilitation Specialist will be an expert in vision rehabilitation, independent living skills training, holistic assessment, and supporting people with sight loss to build confidence, resilience and independence. Our Vision Rehabilitation Specialists play a huge part in ensuring everything we do enables us to deliver on our purpose and exceed expectations.
This role supports Glasgow and West of Scotland region, with occasional travel across wider Scotland as required. You will work 35 hours per week, Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5pm. Some flexibility is required to occasionally work outside of core hours, including evenings and, on rare occasions, weekends.
Key Responsibilities
- Build trusted relationships with people living with sight loss, taking a personalised approach to understanding their goals, strengths and support needs.
- Carry out holistic assessments of mobility, independence, wellbeing and functional vision to identify the right support for each individual.
- Develop and deliver tailored rehabilitation and training programmes that build confidence, independence and everyday life skills.
- Support clients to use assistive technology, equipment and other services that help them achieve their goals.
- Regularly review progress with clients, adapting support plans to ensure positive outcomes are achieved.
- Work collaboratively with colleagues, partner organisations and local services to provide seamless support and maximise impact.
- Share your expertise by supporting and mentoring colleagues while maintaining accurate records and adhering to safeguarding and data protection requirements.
You
You'll have a person-centred and empowering approach to supporting people with sight loss to develop their mobility, independence and wellbeing. You'll enjoy working independently and collaboratively across communities and multi-agency environments, with a dedicated focus on delivering tailored rehabilitation programmes and achieving meaningful outcomes for clients, whilst being committed to helping people live the life they choose with confidence, dignity and independence. You'll act with integrity and honesty in everything you do.
Skills and Competencies
- Qualified as either a Mobility Instructor or Rehabilitation Worker - please refer to the Essential Education/ Qualifications criteria within the attached Job Description
- Able to meet the travel requirements of the role. This may be through holding a valid full UK driving licence or alternative arrangements such as Access to Work support or public transport, if suitable for the role location.
- Able to undertake physical demands of the role, including walking long distances daily for extended periods of time, in all weather conditions. Be able to handle equipment and specialist resource required for the role.
- Proven post qualification experience of working with people who are blind and partially sighted.
- Proven experience of liaising effectively with other professionals / agencies.
- Has proven skills and approaches to work with people who have additional needs.
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.
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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.
