Volunteer Telford

In this role, you will be providing a puppy with a vital foundation for its future role as a guide dog. This is a full-time volunteering opportunity as a puppy will live with you in your home for around 12-16 months.

What you’ll be doing

We rely on volunteers like you to help us improve the lives of people with sight loss. In this role your support will include:

- Following Guide Dogs Puppy Raising for Excellent Partnerships (PREP) programme, to raise and prepare a puppy to become a guide dog.

- Using our guidelines to care for your puppy e.g., providing sufficient exercise.

- Familiarising a puppy to a wide range of environments.

- Teaching a puppy to be alone by gradually building up from a few minutes to a maximum of 4 hours.

- Attending regular puppy classes.

- Meeting regularly with Guide Dogs representatives to discuss your pup’s development.

- Completing regular on-line questionnaires to help us monitor puppy progress.

You’ll get

Volunteering is a two-way street, so in return for your time you will get a dedicated volunteer manager/key contact who will help you settle in and support you during your time with us. You’ll also get:

- The satisfaction in knowing you are supporting people with sight loss to live actively, independently, and well.

- The challenge and reward of seeing a puppy develop in your home.

- The opportunity to learn and develop your understanding in dog body language, learning theory, the human animal bond and the life of a guide dog.

Training and support

This role has 13 hours of training and then you’ll be ready to go! These modules include:

- Our bespoke Puppy Raising for Excellent Partnerships (PREP) training to support you at every stage of the puppy’s development.

- Ongoing training both virtually and face to face as part of the role.

If you have questions about the training requirements, we can answer these at your interview along with any other support or accessibility needs you may have.

Volunteering for Guide Dogs should never leave you out of pocket. We’ll make sure we pay any expenses related to your volunteering with us in line with our policy.

Being a Day Centre Volunteer puts you right at the heart of our work. You will interact with older people and help to make their time with us feel extra special. You will help our clients to feel comfortable, supported and add the magic 'spark' that makes our support so personal.

You'll help us to run a wide range of fun, safe and engaging activities such as arts & crafts and games, in addition to serving tea, coffee and refreshments.

If you're the kind of person who thrives on being around people, making a difference and spreading joy through your warm and friendly personality - we want to hear from you!

Minibus escort duties:

Travel on the minibus and escort members from their homes to and from the day centre, giving assistance when required.

What you will get out of it:

A great sense of satisfaction, enjoy interacting with older people

Do something different and socialise, enjoy being part of a team

Give something back to your community

Full training and support in aspects such as safeguarding, food safety and emergency first aid

Volunteers tell us they get a great deal from volunteering with us

We have a variety of roles available:

If you enjoy driving and would love to use those skills to help our cats, this could be the role for you. Our transport volunteers provide vital assistance to our teams and volunteer groups in the local area by transporting equipment, litter, food– and even cats!

They have the essential role of connecting our network of volunteers, sites, vets and supporters.  Without the passionate and committed teams of volunteers across Cats Protection, we wouldn’t be able to help the thousands of cats and kittens each year that rely on us for help. 

What can you expect to be doing?

 Arranging and transporting equipment, litter and cat food.

Transporting cats to and from vets, foster homes and centres.

Transporting equipment to and from events.

Time expectation - Our transport volunteers usually spend two to four hours per week in this role, which is flexible and can be shared by more than one volunteer if needed.

Support, guidance and keeping you safe -At Cats Protection we believe our volunteers should be happy and confident in their roles. We provide support and guidance from our National Cat Centre and through our regional and local volunteer groups and teams.

We offer engaging online and face-to-face training, expenses and have policies and processes to help volunteers get the most out of their time with us. 

The wellbeing of our people is important and at Cats Protection we are committed to safeguarding children, adults at risk and all those that we come into contact with as part of our activities.