The test cohort of participants for this exciting new online training started the programme on 1st February. Here’s the latest news from Vicky Halls…
This is a really exciting time for us as we have just started working with a group of volunteers who have offered to join us to test the new online programme. It is really important for us to complete this test, as it is a departure from our more conventional online learning courses and we want to make sure it delivers the outcome we hope to achieve.
We want this programme to enable participants to use what they know about Cat Friendly Homing and apply that learning to their own situations. It is sometimes very difficult to learn about something theoretically and apply that learning in a real-life situation, we hope this programme will bridge the gap between theory and practice. What made this programme challenging to create, is that every situation, organisation and country works slightly differently, so the programme had to be designed to enable each participant to set their own Cat Friendly goals, relevant to their circumstances and resources.
We will act as coaches, rather than tutors as you would find in the more conventional tutor/student model, because we believe that there is a great deal of knowledge and expertise out there and what we need to do is support individuals and organisations to implement Cat Friendly changes to their way of working while they are actually on the programme. The iCatCare coaches (initially myself and my colleague, Kim Horsford) will guide the participants and offer practical advice to enable them to achieve the ambitions they have set for themselves. For those who want or need to learn more, the information is there for them and they will get the full support of their coaches if they wish to booster their knowledge in any particular area.
We are very fortunate to have willing volunteers from the UK, Mexico, Goa, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Zanzibar, who have agreed to work through the programme and give us feedback so that the final version can be as effective as possible in spreading the Cat Friendly Principles and way of working. Cat Friendly Homing has the potential to reduce:
- Cats’ length of stay in centres
- The incidence of infectious disease
- The stress of confinement for cats
and increase:
- Adoption rates
- The number of cats helped overall
On publication of this newsletter we are in week 2 of the programme. We will give you more information in the next newsletter with some feedback from the participants about their experience.
The first cohort for the tested programme will start August 2021 please register your interest for more information
