Job Openings
VA Boston Healthcare System
05/22/2025
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All applications must be submitted through USAJobs.gov
Blind Rehabilitation Outpatient Specialist
Our ideal candidate will be dual ACVREP certified, but we can accept a candidate who has a single ACVREP certification if they obtain their second certification within 2 years of appointment. (COMS, CATIS, CLVT, and CVRT are all highly desired.)
Salary range: $100,371 - $130,488
Salary range: $83,742 - $108,859 - promotion potential to GS 12
The primary purpose of Blind Rehabilitation Outpatient Specialist (BROS) position is to manage and provide direct blind and vision rehabilitation training services to visually impaired Veterans and Service Members. The position is located at the Jamaica Plain Campus of VA Boston Healthcare System.
The BROS identifies, assesses, trains, manages and provides follow-up for veterans using clinical resources of the facility. The incumbent serves as a member of the Blind Rehabilitation Service, Advanced Low Vision Clinic and will interact with the Visual Impairment Services Team, Optometry, Ophthalmology, Rehabilitation Medicine, Audiology, Social Work, Prosthetic and Sensory Aids, and other services and agencies of the VA and the community. The work is performed in a number of settings including hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centers, long-term care facilities, educational institutions and home environments.
BROS study visual and non-visual barriers and related processes that result in activity limitations, participation restrictions, loss of vocational and avocational opportunities and psychological distress. In providing direct services, they use diagnostic and therapeutic techniques and instrumentation to identify and resolve or minimize these problems.
Functions and Scope of assigned duties include but are not limited to:
- Provides direct patient care and support services to an adult population of patients and must tailor patient care and support services to meet the needs of the individual patient.
- Assesses, plans, trains and performs outcome evaluation of each veteran for whom service is provided.
- Selects, interprets and adapts traditional strategies to meet veteran needs.
- Develops an individualized rehabilitation-training plan for each veteran with rehabilitation potential.
- Uses complex assessment tools and trains veteran on sophisticated prosthetics and sensory aids to accomplish the work.
- Able to function as an independent provider of blind and vision rehabilitation services.
Basic Requirements:
- United States Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
- English language proficiency. Candidates will not be appointed under authority of 38 USC chapters 73 or 74, to service in a direct patient-care capacity in VHA who are not proficient in written and spoken English.
- Education: The individual must have earned:
A bachelor's degree from and accredited college or university with a major field of study in blind or vision rehabilitation, or closely related program in rehabilitation, special education for the visually impaired, family and consumer science education, or technology and industrial arts education.
OR
A master's degree from an accredited college or university with a major field of study in blind or vision rehabilitation, or closely related program in rehabilitation, special education, family and consumer science education, technology, and industrial arts education.
OR
A bachelor's [or master's] degree from an accredited college or university (without a major field of study as outlined above) and obtained a certificate from an accredited college or university in the core curriculum in orientation and mobility, vision rehabilitation therapy, assistive technology for blind and visually imparted individuals, or low vision therapy. This education must have included supervised practice; and
Completion of one year of progressively complex experience equivalent to the BRS, GS-9 grade level.
OR
Three (3) years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to a doctoral degree in blind rehabilitation or a directly related field.
Foreign graduates must have proof of a minimum of a bachelor's degree from and accredited college or university (or foreign equivalent, as verified through an independent credential evaluation company), with a specialization in blind rehabilitation. - Certification: Required at all levels for the BROS
Applicants must possess at least one active, current, full and unrestricted certification to be eligible for appointment.
NOTE: The Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation & Education Professionals (ACVREP) administers four (4) certification programs: Low Vision Therapy, Orientation and Mobility, Assistive Technology Instruction and Vision Rehabilitation Therapy. They may then use the designation for the certification they hold listed below:
BROS who provide the following services must obtain and maintain one certification at the GS-11 level and two certifications at the GS-12 grade level granted by ACVREP as follows: - Orientation and mobility training - Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialist (COMS)
- Communication and daily living therapy - Certificated Vision Rehabilitation Therapists (CVRT)
- Low vision Therapy - Certified low Vision Therapists (CLVT)
- Assistive Technology - Certified Assistive Technology Instructional Specialists (CATIS)
E_mail:
jennifer.gustafson@va.gov
Phone:
857-364-5580
Cert:
Any Certification
All applications must be submitted through USAJobs
GS 12 – full performance grade (2 certifications, 1 year experience): https://www.usajobs.gov/job/837338700
GS 11- entry level (1 certification, no experience limitation): https://www.usajobs.gov/job/837338000
Application closing date is 6/20/25.
