Therapet Pathway back to Visiting
Dear Therapet® Volunteers We are excited to share with you our ‘Pathway to Therapet Visiting’ which is below and outlines the three Steps in our pathway and what will be involved during each of these.
As of Monday 9th August, we will resume Therapet assessments but there will not yet be any Therapet visiting permitted. Assessments will take place for the following groups:
Potential volunteers who have made enquiries about our service and wish to become volunteers.
New volunteers who registered with us prior to March 2020 but have yet to undertake any visiting. This is necessary to ensure that the Therapet is still suitable as many circumstances may have changed during the pandemic.
Any volunteer who is unsure whether their Therapet should return to Therapet visiting due to changes in circumstances such as medical conditions etc.
NOTE: There will be NO assessments for working with children at this time. Due to the duration of the lockdown and restrictions, we need to ensure that all Therapets are comfortable in their role with adults before we re-assess them for working with children. We will therefore be asking all those who have completed a minimum of one year of visiting adults who wish to be considered for working with children, to undertake another six months of adult visiting before re-assessment will be considered. Please understand that as a charity, we have to do everything possible to minimise risk and where children are involved the risk is always greater, so we need to protect them, you and your Therapet by putting such procedures in place!
Those who have previously been visiting children will need to decide as to whether they think their Therapet is still suitable for this or if they need to allow some time working with adults again first. If in doubt, discuss with your Area Representative.
If you fall into one of the categories for assessment outlined above, please contact your Area Representative/Coordinator or our office now and we will arrange a time for the assessment to be completed.
Once assessments are underway and we are happy with how things are going and providing the situation with the virus and the Scottish Government guidelines permit, we will then announce a date in September when Therapet visits may resume across Scotland.
Important: Prior to resuming any visits, all volunteers will be required to sign and return to the office the ‘Statement of Volunteer Fitness’ and ‘Statement of Therapet Fitness’ attached to the ‘Pathway to Visiting’ document. The volunteer fitness declaration is primarily to ensure that, for our insurance purposes, as far as you are aware you are not dealing with any Covid-19 related illness. You will receive a copy of this in the post next week.
We would also invite you to now start contacting your Area Representative to discuss your thoughts on returning to visiting. Some of you may wish to return to places previously visited where others may wish a change or to wait for a bit longer, and we can allocate any gaps to new volunteers. We know that many places are still not ready for us to return to visiting with them and some still have restrictions that make our visits untenable.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your Area Representative/Coordinator or the office. The office is still on reduced staffing but taking calls Mon-Fri 10am – 1pm. Note that some areas now have vacancies for volunteer Area Representatives (Ayrshire, Dumfries & Galloway, Edinburgh West, Perthshire) so please contact the office if there is no coordinator for your region. Anyone who is interested in discussing the above vacant roles, please also let us know. West Lothian volunteers please contact Bill Macdonald as he is able to assist with questions.
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Take care everyone and fingers crossed we will see you all back out visiting soon. Mel Hughes
CEO
Canine Concern Scotland Trust
81-85 Portland Street
Edinburgh EH6 4A
0131 553 0034 / 07517 363 158
