• Description of this section
• Skills required by professionals
• Challenges regarding training
• Recommendations based upon good practice

Description of this section

This section considers the specialist skills and knowledge required of Mobility and Independence Educators and other professionals involved in the provision of mobility and independence education. It also outlines some of the challenges in the field of professional training identified in the research project.

Skills required by professionals

The role of the Mobility and Independence Educator is a complex one. As previously described, the factors that determine which professional takes on this role include the area of the mobility and independence curriculum being considered, the level and type of training that the professional has received, and his or her experience.

Identified differences in the needs of children and the needs of adults

Most Mobility and Independence Educators believe that children have needs that are quite different from those of adults and that targeted training must address these needs. In particular:

• Children require an appropriately modified instructional or teaching style.
• Children may take longer to acquire skills and the pace of their learning may be slower than that of adults.
• They may have a shorter concentration span.
• Children may lack many of the basic concepts possessed by adults who have previously had sight, e.g. understanding of terms such as “kerb”, “post box”, etc.
• Children may need to further develop physical skills such as balance and co-ordination before they are able to perform long cane techniques.
• Children need different assessment procedures from those used with adults.
• The routes that a child needs to learn change constantly as the child develops, while adults’ routes tend to be more established.
• Negotiation over goal setting is more difficult with children; adults tend to know what they want to achieve and why.
• Motivation can be more difficult because some children find it harder to appreciate the longer-term benefit of their training.
• Some Mobility Officers consider counselling skills an important preparation for working with children.

Generic Rehabilitation Officer training content

Many qualified Rehabilitation Officers feel ill equipped to work with children and this is particularly so if the children’s needs are complex. Many interviewees commented that the Rehabilitation Officer training programmes were geared towards working with adults in social services and they were described as “very much adult oriented”, “paying lip-service to children and education” and that in general Rehabilitation Officer training establishments tended to “associate themselves with social work not education”. Several respondents said they had to learn “on the job” when working with children. This is not surprising since most of the training is based in a rehabilitation context rather than an educational one.

Some respondents who had expressed a wish to work with children early in the Rehabilitation Officer training were given placements in education settings and allowed to incorporate work into their assignments on children, but this was often seen as an “add on”.

Training for Rehabilitation Officers

The breadth of Rehabilitation Officer training means that they are vulnerable to being isolated within an education setting because they may apply adult models of  ‘rehabilitation’ to the children they work with. For example, there are examples of those interviewed saying that they could not work with children until the children’s mobility skills were ‘better’. This suggests that training does not always equip Rehabilitation Officers to deliver early and foundation mobility and independence education. There are many examples of these difficulties being overcome, and the following Rehabilitation Officer characteristics are likely to be contributory factors:

• Rehabilitation Officer has a clear appreciation of the differences between working with children and adults;
• has a background in working with children before their training;
• is able to work in collaboration with (or be part of) the education service
• sees him or herself as having a responsibility for advising and training others to implement programmes and is comfortable collaborating with other key people, e.g. QTVIs, teaching assistants, class teachers and parents; and
• has an additional formal training qualification in working with children;

As part of their basic two-year training programme, it would be useful if all rehabilitation officers received:

• A sense that they have a responsibility for the whole age range of people with a visual impairment.
• A grounding which develops an awareness of the differences between working with children and adults.
• An opportunity to work with children in their practical placements.
• An understanding of the role of a Rehabilitation Officer working with an education service.
• An understanding of inclusion and experience of inclusive practices.
• An introduction to the mobility and independence curriculum.

Ideally, to achieve this aim the training providers should make more use of tutors who have a background in working with children, and programmes should establish better links with education services and QTVIs. In the meantime, it might be useful for Rehabilitation Officers to attend ‘top-up’ courses that focus on children. 

Training for QTVIs

QTVIs are most effective when they:

• Give a high priority in their work to facilitating the delivery of mobility and independence education to children.
• Have an additional qualification in mobility beyond their specialist training.
• Work in partnership with a Rehabilitation Officer.
• Encourage the training of teaching assistants in mobility and independence.
• Understand the roles of Rehabilitation Officers working in social services.

In some cases second level training for QTVIs should be available to allow them to teach advanced mobility and independence travel skills in the absence of a qualified Rehabilitation Officer. However the use of QTVIs to deliver this aspect of the curriculum is acknowledged as expensive.

Their role in the delivery of mobility and independence education is likely to be one of supervising and advising other key people who have a role in the delivery of the mobility and independence curriculum. Training (possibly including second level programmes) which prepares QTVIs for managing and delivering mobility and independence programmes in mainstream settings would be more appropriate than training in long-cane skills.

Training for Teaching Assistants in mainstream schools

Efficient and effective mobility and independence education requires the Mobility and Independence Educator to work in co-operation with other professionals, therefore those most often with the child (teaching assistant and class teacher at school, parents at home) should be advised by the Mobility and Independence Educator. 

The research found few examples of formal training of teaching assistants. However, time invested in giving them some formal training to help deliver a mobility programme is valuable. One interviewee used the expression ‘mobility assistant’:

Ideally, formal routes through accredited training pathways should be identified and incorporated into teaching assistant standards developed by the Local Government National Training Organisations (LGNTO). The training path should allow for the possibility of a teaching assistant using credits accrued in training to eventually qualify as an mobility officer / rehabilitation officer.

Difficulties arise in determining the areas of the mobility and independence curriculum that should be taken on by teaching assistants with a specialist qualification and the level of responsibility they should hold. The following demarcation of roles is recommended:

• Teaching assistants without a specialist mobility and independence qualification should take on roles of reinforcing programmes and teaching that have been implemented by the Mobility and Independence Educator.
• Teaching assistants with a specialist mobility and independence qualification should take on the role of implementing programmes designed by the Mobility and Independence Educator. The areas of the mobility and independence curriculum to be delegated should be identified by the Mobility and Independence Educator.

Challenges regarding training

Viability of some training programmes

Interviews revealed that there were serious doubts about the future of a number of training programmes that were running at the time of the research (during 2001). Funding appeared to be an important issue, as many students on rehabilitation officer programmes are self-funded and another concern was the apparent shortage of staff with the expertise to deliver training. This could lead to a problem where some vital short courses are not available in some parts of the country. Additionally, as some organisations no longer provide courses the field is becoming reliant on a few main providers, which may make the future of training provision vulnerable.

Consistency of programme outcomes

The research also suggested that there was a lack of clarity about the comparative ‘academic’ status of different training programmes. For example, do all programmes specific to working with children enable the trainee to design and deliver programmes related to the advanced mobility and independence curriculum?  Similarly, do generic rehabilitation officer programmes enable the trainee to work on all aspects of the early and foundation mobility and independence curriculum?  There appears to be no consensus about the ideal duration, design and depth of mobility and independence programmes.  Training courses in the area of mobility and independence education have tended to develop in different ways and the standards they adopt may not always be comparable. It is therefore vital to ensure that the content of any training programme offers support and training on the areas that are required, before signing up for the programme.

Funding of programmes

The research found that some students on programmes offered by Guide Dogs were provided with bursaries by the organisation to help fund their studies. Students on other rehabilitation officer training programmes were more likely to be self-funding. Detailed data relating to sources of funding were not collected, however there were ad hoc sources of funding reported including the European Social Fund, and Residential Training Unit.  Funding is discussed further in Section 5.

Finding a suitable training programme

As suggested earlier, the number of courses available that focus on teaching mobility and independence to children tends to fluctuate, such that specific details of courses would soon become out of date. Therefore the contact details of a number of organisations who either provide training or can signpost to other organisations that do, are provided in Section 7: Useful links / resources.

Recommendations based upon good practice

The findings of the research have several implications for the training of those supporting mobility and independence education. Some of these implications can be thought of as good practice recommendations for training providers that can be implemented within existing programmes. As these are aimed at training providers rather than those involved in providing M&I education to children, they are not detailed here. They can however be accessed in the full research report, Pavey et al 2002.

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