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.

Planting, weeding, watering, simple garden tasks. Instruction given. 

One morning per month. 2nd Tuesday of every month from 10 till 1pm, weather permitting.

Benefits include better physical and mental health, free food that you have helped grow, social interaction with others,

Opportunity to learn new skills and teach ones you may have.

Volunteers would report to the team leader, James Warham. They are responsible for themselves and any children they bring.

Leegomery Community Centre,

off Leegate Avenue,

Telford.

Training:

No training beforehand.  Learning is mostly on the job.

There will be other opportunities offered from Transition Telford from time to time.

Join our Bucket Brigade and help us with our community bucket collections.

Bucket collections are not only a great way to raise much needed funds for us, but also a great way to connect with our local community.

This is a perfect opportunity if you would like to support us on an ad-hoc or one-off basis. It’s flexible and can easily fit into busy lifestyles.

If you’ve a couple of hours to spare it can really make a huge difference. Money raised through our collections directly supports our caring services.  

Our fundraising diary includes regular collections across the region, anywhere from Dawley Centre to Shrewsbury’s Asda.

We’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in collecting in your local area.

Local homelessness organisations Stay, Maninplace, Kip and YMCA are looking for flexible people who just want to help in general, wouldn't mind being an extra pairs of hands and willing to take on a variety of tasks.

This could involve being an extra pair of hands during group sessions and helping out with the associated tasks. This also could include making drinks, handing out materials, helping clients, setting up and clearing away the activities etc.