Saturday, April 08, 2006

Interested in helping? Get trained!

The recent storms in Tennessee have got me thinking about disasters again.

Yesterday, when I was picking up food (thank you, food fairies!) I was stopped by Jonathan of Shelter Outreach Services who handed me a brochure for an April 23 program in Ithaca on investigating animal cruelty, for law enforcement professionals (which, if there is space, usually includes those interested in becoming professionals, for example students and volunteers.

So far I have not found the brochure online, but I'll keep looking. The email contact is Lanie Anton at outreach@aspca.org It runs from 8-5 on April 23, and includes breakfast and lunch.

New York State Humane Association has a great manual on investigating animal cruelty.

While looking for more online information to share, I stumbled across the ASPCA page for disaster response training, and they do quite a bit of training in NYS. Their full schedule is here.

It also appears the ASPCA is dedicated to getting more people trained as UAN EARS volunteers before the hurricane season smashes the Gulf and East Coast again. If you are interested, check the UAN link.

Of course, the best part of attending training sessions is getting to meet like-minded people and realizing you aren't alone in your care for animals, or your dedication to helping PEOPLE who need help with their animals.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a member of UAN and have indicated interest in taking their training, but I unfortunately signed up too late to take their classes in Las Vegas in 2005. There's nothing nearby on their schedule for 2006, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 2007.

Cat said...

This is great. Wish we have a similar program in Singapore (not that we'll ever experience hurricane). But I think it'll prepare cat owners & volunteers to be ready for any disaster that strikes.