A day in the life of… Tara Klave, Rehabilitation Worker, ECL Sensory Service
Tara has been with ECL for five years. A former hairdresser, Tara, embarked on a career change and joined the Sensory Service as a Sensory Liaison Officer. Soon after starting her role, Tara made the decision to pursue becoming a qualified rehabilitation worker and has just completed a two-year apprenticeship to become a Rehabilitation Worker for the Visually Impaired.
Tell us about your role.
“My role is to support and empower people with sight loss to live safely and maintain independence and dignity in every aspect of their daily life. I do this through working with them to set independence goals and then implement a rehabilitation plan to help them achieve them. I deliver all aspects of rehabilitation to customers, including long cane training, kitchen skills, lighting support and technology support.”
What does a typical day look like for you?
“At the moment I am doing a lot of intervention action plans (IAPs) with service users in the community. An IAP is basically the plan that is created following a sensory assessment outlining what that person wants to achieve and how we will support them to do it.
“I visit customers daily. I cover all of Essex, other than Southend and Thurrock. My day-to-day is visiting service users who are allocated to me. How many people I can see in a day depends on the length of the sessions and where they are located really but usually it’s about two to three people a day to allow time for travel and write ups.
“If my visit involves long cane training then I route plan the sessions beforehand too so that I know their route beforehand and know what obstacles will come up that we need to tackle. You need to know the route to teach the route. I then break that route down into smaller bits and teach it in stages with the end goal being that the person can eventually do the route independently.
“What I do in each visit is very varied as what I do is person centred and goal-specific to what the individual wants to achieve. Although currently I am mainly working on cane training because that is the focus of the majority of people I am supporting at the moment.
“I type notes from each visit, if I can I usually do this in between visits, if there is no time for that then I do them at the end of the day. I also do a lot of onward referrals so if someone for example, needed a referral to a low vision clinic or if someone is interested in a befriending scheme, emotional support services or a referral to our ECL sighted guide scheme, I would do that as part of my administration as well.
“It's really fun. The days go very quickly as it’s very busy.”
What do you love most about your role?
“Honestly, I love everything about my job. I am lucky as not many people can say that. I have found my passion and so it really doesn’t feel like work! I would say the best thing is the sense of achievement you get when you are working with someone and by the end of your time with them they can do something independently and safely that they couldn’t do before. There’s an amazing sense of achievement that comes from that, for me and the customer. To be able to enable and promote independence is incredible. You are helping people overcome barriers and that’s such a privilege. It makes me so proud to be able to help people achieve independence.”
Advice to those thinking of a move to ECL’s Sensory service:
“Go for it! We are a really welcoming and supportive team. The managers will help you progress and achieve your aspirations. I would say to anyone in ECL looking to progress to another role in any other team, speak to people who are already in the area that you want to go into as they can offer so much advice and guidance. Before embarking on my journey to become a rehabilitation worker I had lots of chats with our qualified rehabilitation workers. Before I went into the apprenticeship I shadowed them so I got a feel for the job. Do as much research as you can and really speak up and voice your goals because what you put out there really does come to you. The opportunities are there you just have to go for them!”
What are your future aspirations?
“To keep learning, getting experience and to be the best rehab worker that I can be! In the future it would be lovely to do some additional learning in the area of sight loss and complex needs. I just want to keep progressing really and be the best that I can for my team and the people in the community that I am working with.”