My life at work

Name: Sally Hughes
Age: 43
Job title: Early years inclusion officer
Employer: RNIB (Royal National Institute of the Blind)
Salary: 17,823-21,078 (SC6/SO1)
Location: Birmingham

Duties

The RNIB's Early Excellence Partnership Project for children (birth to five years) with visual impairment and their families is funded nationally through Sure Start and employs ten early years inclusion officers to work in four regions of the country. I, together with another inclusion officer, cover the whole of Birmingham.

The project, funded until 2006, aims to support both the existing provision for children with visual impairment and to identify and respond to future needs and priorities.

The main duties of the job are to work in partnership with other agencies, both statutory and voluntary, which support visually impaired children from birth to five years and to provide information and support to children, their families and carers.

The nature of the work is varied. One day I might visit the mother of a three-month-old baby who has just been told her daughter is blind; the next, I'm encouraging a five-year-old boy with a lazy eye to wear a patch when he's at school.

Between visits, I demonstrate to staff at Early Excellence Centres how to use simple ICT programs when working with young children with sight loss. The rest of the time is spent at the office researching information for parents on particular eye conditions or recommending toys to be included in the RNIB catalogue.

I am in regular contact with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, programme managers, Sure Start inclusion workers, hospital orthoptists, nursery staff and health visitors, to name a few. Because Birmingham has a large multicultural population, an interpreter often accompanies me on home visits.

Throughout the project we have held a number of family days with creches, art, music and drama activities for children and speakers and discussion groups for parents. We are now in the process of putting together a bid to provide funding for more regular parent support groups.

Likes/dislikes

I love the variety of the job and I like seeing the children's achievements. If there's one area of the job I dislike, it's the travelling. It takes me an hour and a half to get to work - I live 30 miles from the centre of Birmingham - and to travel just five miles across the city centre can take up to half an hour during rush hour.

Best achievement

Gaining my BA (Hons) in Early Childhood Studies in 2001 and having three very good friends with me at the graduation ceremony to help celebrate.

Training

I gained my NNEB in 1978 and since then, I've taken up any useful opportunity that presents itself to do further training. In the 1980s, I took Basic and Advanced Portage Training and various special needs courses; in the 1990s, I studied Personal Presentation Skills, Handling Conflict and Managerial Skills (with the National Early Years Network) and I also started my part-time degree course.

Since joining the RNIB, I've completed a modular course on visual impairment in the early years and I am now awaiting the results. But I am beginning to think I am a glutton for punishment as I'm also hoping to sign up for a 32-week certificate in counselling, starting in September 2004.

Career path

After qualifying as a nursery nurse, I worked in a 40-place mainstream nursery unit attached to a primary school. In 1983, I moved to a health authority child development centre, working in a multi-disciplinary team with parents and their pre-school children with special needs. This brought me into contact with speech therapists, physiotherapists, paediatricians and psychologists and I learnt a lot along the way.

One of my duties was to visit a small number of parents and children at home using the portage home teaching model. This led me to apply for a senior role in a new home-teaching service for pre-school children with special needs, set up by a local education authority.

Ten years and two local authority reorganisations later, I found myself working as the team leader for the county pre-school home visiting team. This involved co-ordinating the work of the team, liaising with referrers in health trusts, and advising the service manager on the team's resource and professional development needs.

Career progression

Just 12 months down the line, it's great to see how the RNIB's Early Partnership Project is developing and I can see how it might grow in the future. Who knows what's five years down the line?