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• Vision Rehabilitation Specialist tags

Closing date: Monday 19 August 2024
Location: Home based with regular travel across Wrexham, with the requirement to work from the Council Offices and Vision Support offices on occasion
Hours: 37 hours per week
Salary: £33,977.84 - £35,246.40
Contract: Permanent
Interview date: TBC

Qualification required – Foundation Degree in Rehabilitation Studies (Visual Impairment) or equivalent.

Vision Support is a well-established organisation with a strong history in promoting independence and support to people with vision impairments (VI). Offering a wide variety of services for vision impaired people across Cheshire, Halton and North Wales, including counselling, digital skills, financial wellbeing and benefits advice, home visiting, community outreach, and peer support. These services complement rehabilitation to create a wraparound service for our clients.

Vision Support’s values are at the heart of everything we do, ensuring that there is a collaborative approach across the organisation, responding proactively to what people say is important to them and supporting people with warmth, dignity, and respect.

Vision Support delivers the vision rehabilitation contracts to four local authorities across North East Wales. The team are managed and led by qualified and experienced Vision Rehabilitation Specialists (VRS), ensuring the best support from people who understand the role. You would be a part of a wider team of VRSs, meeting regularly to share learning and to give and receive support.

Vision Support understands the importance for all their staff to receive additional training as needed and support from the wider sector, so RWPN registration and membership fees are covered for the VRS team by Vision Support. The organisation is also represented in the Wales Rehabilitation Officers Forum (WROF) and the Wales Vision Forum, to ensure that we are up to date with any changes affecting VRS working in Wales. VRS are also able to meet with other VRS more widely than Wales through the organisation’s membership of Visionary.

Job Purpose

To identify, deliver and evaluate professional rehabilitation interventions to vision impaired people to enhance their skills and confidence to maximise their independence.

To provide a person-centred outcome-focussed approach to rehabilitation; supporting people to identify measurable outcomes,

carry out assessments and develop a plan that will support each person to achieve their outcomes and meet their needs, reducing risks and lessening the impact of their VI.

To work collaboratively with other services within Vision Support to ensure individuals are receiving support whilst waiting for assessment and rehabilitation.

Key Responsibilities

• Triage – To carry out an initial conversation, in line with the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act, to identify further actions, risk factors, refer and signpost to Vision Support’s wider services and other organisations to meet the individuals’ desired outcomes.
• Assessment – To undertake specialist VI assessments with the person to identify their needs and aspirations to promote independent living.
• Plan – To agree a plan with the person about how their needs can be met, through other services, equipment and rehabilitation.
• Rehabilitation and service provision – To implement, evaluate and review rehabilitative services to the vision impaired person aimed at maximising and maintaining independence, safety, dignity, and choice. Rehabilitation may include, but not be restricted to:
• Daily Living Skills – to include the teaching of new skills or adapted practice for all aspects of daily living, home management, employment and leisure.
• Communication Skills – to include all forms of access to communication including but not limited to print, Braille, Moon, audio description, ICT, telephones, Deafblind manual and block alphabet.
• Mobility training – To develop planned programmes of training to develop independence in indoor and outdoor mobility environments, including training in guiding skills, pre-cane, long cane, orientation (including specialist equipment) and route planning techniques.
• Low vision – To provide training/therapy in coordination with local NHS low vision services that help individuals make the best use of functional vision.
• Risk –To identify, assess and mitigate risk throughout the rehabilitation provision.
• To work with vision impaired people who have additional complex needs.
• To assess and recommend minor works of adaptation and liaise with all relevant parties in line with appropriate budgets and policies.
• To provide statistical information to feed into quarterly contract monitoring reports.
• To enable the Local Authority to maintain their Partially Sighted/Sight Impaired and Blind/Severely Sight Impaired Registers.

Personal and Professional Development

To practice in accordance with the National Occupational Standards for Specialist Sensory Workers.

To register (and maintain registration) with RWPN (Rehabilitation Workers Professional Network).

To manage and be accountable for, with supervision and managerial support, your own practice within your organisation, including maintaining professional development.

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge and understanding of Welsh legislation, statutory codes, standards, framework and guidance relevant to rehabilitation practice and related fields.

To maintain a current working knowledge of the safe use of a wide range of specialist equipment.

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of eye conditions and treatments, knowledge of the practical application of teaching, and learning theories.

To prepare for, and participate in, regular technical and managerial supervision and annual performance from appropriately qualified supervisors.

To supervise, mentor and support student Vision Rehabilitation Specialists on placement where appropriate.

To develop and maintain links with primary and secondary care and public health services, particularly Ophthalmology, Optometry practices, GP practices and ECLOs.

Person Specification

(All attributes and skills are essential unless otherwise specified)

Fluent Welsh speaker (desirable).

Ability to develop clear plans and communicate these to service users and other staff.

Ability to delegate tasks to other staff where appropriate (desirable).

Recognised rehabilitation work qualification (or currently working towards it)

Proven experience of performing rehabilitation assessments with visually impaired people and providing mobility, communication and daily living skills training.

Working knowledge of good practice relating to safeguarding.

Ability to deliver training/advice sessions to individuals or groups of service users, carers and other organisations.

Knowledge of Health and Safety legislation, including lone worker policies.

Ability to travel and work in all areas of Flintshire and Wrexham.

Good knowledge of other related agencies (desirable).

Strong personal organisation/time management.

Proven track record of maintaining and updating personal records for clients.

Ability to record service management statistics.

Be calm and deal sensitively with people and be open minded to all cultures and ways of life.

Work on own initiative, whilst exercising discretion and confidentiality.

Be a team player.

Be willing to work flexibly (outlook, work hours, work location).

Able to implement programmes in partnership with other agencies.

Good personal presentation skills, and oral/written communication skills.

Please note, we reserve the right to close this advert early should we find a suitable candidate.

To apply, please contact Kate Hurst, Internal Operations Manager, on 01244 381515 or khurst@visionsupport.org.uk.