Job Title: / Freedom Project Assistant – North East & Yorkshire
Reporting to: / Freedom Project Co-ordinator- Yorkshire & North East (in their absence Head of Outreach Projects)
Location: / Office in the Durham area. Initially the candidate will be required to work from our Leeds Office for up to 4 weeks for training purposes.
Contract: / Permanent
Hours: / Mon to Fri, 9am to 5pm (candidates will be required to undertake occasional out of hours working in order to support the service)
Revised: / Jan 2017
Post details: / Due to the nature of this role, this post is for women only and is exempt under Schedule 9 of the Equality Act 2010
Summary
Dogs Trust Freedom Project is a pet fostering service for people fleeing domestic abuse. However, the majority of our referrals come from women fleeing domestic abuse via women-only services. The service places dogs into volunteer foster homes on a temporary basis until their owners are able to have them back.
The project takes referrals from various agencies, including women’s refuges, the police and local authority housing departments. Each foster placement is continually monitored and each volunteer foster carer receives ongoing support and advice. For safety and confidentiality reasons owners are unable to visit their pets during placements. However, regular updates and photographs are sent. Pets are either returned to their owners once they are settled in a new home or rehomed via one of our 20 rehoming centres.
The Freedom Project has been running successfully in Greater London, Hertfordshire and Yorkshire for over 12 years and to date we have helped over 1500 pets. In 2016 we expanded our Greater London service to Essex and in 2017 we will be expanding our Yorkshire service to the North East of England. The Yorkshire service is currently staffed by a FT Co-ordinator and two FT Assistants. We are now recruiting for an additional FT Assistant to become part of our successful team to support this service expansion into the North East. The candidate will be based in offices in the Durham area and will be required to work closely with the Yorkshire team to deliver our fostering service across the North East.
The successful candidate will be required to have experience of assessing and handling dogs, giving advice on pet care and having worked in a public facing role. They will be a confident self-starter who has had some experience of working with volunteers and of home visiting. A large part of this role will involve transporting dogs across the North East from North Yorkshire up to the Scottish Borders on a regular basis. Therefore, the candidate will have a full, clean, manual UK driving licence and experience of driving as part of a previous role. An understanding of the problems faced by people fleeing domestic abuse with pets is expected as is a motivation to help and support vulnerable pet owners.
Duties
Freedom Project
The Freedom Project Assistant is managed by the Freedom Project Co-ordinator and will undertake tasks to enable the efficient running of the service, to include:
§ Deal with pet referrals into the project from clients and referral organisations such as women’s refuges, the police and housing departments.
§ Work with the Freedom Team to assess and match dog referrals with suitable registered volunteer foster carers.
§ Collect and transport dogs from safe locations, including refuges, mainly in the North East of England. Travel to other parts of the UK is required on occasion.
§ Assess suitability of volunteer foster carers by carrying out home checks, interviews and referencing.
§ Manage monitoring visits and support / advise volunteer foster carers on welfare and training issues during foster placements.
§ Monitor the welfare and behaviour of foster dogs during each placement and discuss/escalate any concerns with/to the Freedom Project Co-ordinator.
§ Support the Freedom Project Co-ordinator to establish and develop the service in the North East as needed.
§ Liaise with other RC staff (UK wide) in order to rehome foster dogs where required.
§ Sign up private veterinary surgeries to our veterinary payment and invoicing procedures.
§ Order dog food and necessary dog accessories / equipment for the project.
§ Update clients on their pet’s progress including sending them monthly updates and photographs. Discuss any concerns regarding client contact with the Freedom Project Co-ordinator.
§ Where required and in liaison with the Freedom Project Co-ordinator, follow up on housing applications/progress as part of our client case review policy.
§ Maintain contact details for foster carers, clients and foster dogs on DTS (our internal database).
§ Attend regular update meetings with the Freedom Project Co-ordinator.
§ Organise and attend events to promote the service and recruit volunteer foster carers.
§ Cover the day-to-day running of the service in the absence of the Freedom Project Co-ordinator where required.
§ Ensure the Durham office is secure at all times and Dogs Trust confidentiality and data protection policies are adhered to.
§ Cover the out-of-hours Freedom mobile phone rota (currently one week in every six). Duty will start after the probation period has been successfully completed.
§ Ensure the project vehicles assigned to the North East are maintained.
Duties (General)
§ To assist and support the Freedom Project Co-ordinator and Outreach Projects team when required.
§ Liaise effectively with internal Dogs Trust departments where required.
§ To implement and abide by all Dogs Trust and Freedom Project service policies.
§ Ensure that all Health & Safety procedures, as deemed necessary after assessment of risk, are implemented and followed.
§ Any other reasonable duties.
Person specification
Essential
ü Experience of and overall competency in assessing and safely handling a variety of dogs and breed types in a working environment
ü Experience of giving dog welfare advice to owners / handlers and an understanding of positive reinforcement techniques
ü Competent driver, with a valid driving licence, who has driven as part of a previous role
ü Experience of home visiting in either a voluntary or paid capacity
ü Experience of working with volunteers
ü Confident and personable communicator (written and face-to-face), able to deal with sensitive and challenging situations in an appropriate and mature manner
ü Experience of working in a public facing role
ü An understanding of the problems faced by people fleeing domestic abuse with pets
ü Motivated and flexible attitude to support referrals, pet owners, volunteers and other team members across our expanding service
ü Self-starter who is confident managing their own day to day workload
ü Ability to assess situations and make decisions
ü Ability to work and communicate as part of a team but able to prioritise and to take responsibility for own workload
ü IT literate, able to use elements of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel & Outlook) and in-house databases
Desirable
ü Experience of transporting animals as part of a previous role
ü Experience of working in the animal welfare sector
ü Experience of providing basic dog training and behaviour advice using positive reinforcement
ü Experience of managing and supporting volunteers
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Job Description/Freedom Project Assistant – North East & Yorkshire Dogs Trust 05/01/2017