What DOES an RSPCA Community Engagement Manager get up to during a global pandemic ?
By Hayley Peart
Having joined RSPCA West Hatch in early January 2020 with the aim of developing an animal welfare themed education offering , a lot has changed for me as the Centre ’ s Community Engagement Manager .
Just like staff on the frontline , the Prevention and Education team , within which my role sits , have also had to drastically adapt the way we work to ensure we continue delivering valuable messages about animal welfare to members of our local communities .
Prior to the first lockdown I had the pleasure of delivering assemblies for students at Bishop Fox ’ s Community School along with attending Somerset Scout ’ s County Conference which marked the start of the implementation of a variety of exciting plans for local schools and community organisations throughout 2020 . However the first national lockdown led to an extended period of furlough leave and therefore an initial suspension of all educational development and delivery .
Rather excitedly I returned to work in September and immediately began adapting our risk assessments for educational activities whilst rebuilding local connections so that the delivery of face-to-face talks and workshops could resume in a Covid secure manner . This enabled me to promptly deliver a series of sessions for students from the Crockers Centre at Bridgwater and Taunton College . Sadly face-to-face sessions were short lived with the arrival of the second national lockdown last autumn .
At this point I turned my full attention to offering virtual talks and had the pleasure of trialling my first session with a Special Education Needs and Disability ( SEND ) school from Newport , South Wales .
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