Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello Everyone,

We are curious if anyone can share their policy's for special needs volunteers. Prior administrations had them coming in and doing direct animal care or socialization and we have run into a bunch of problems. Now we are structuring our volunteer program and we are curious what other organizations do as this can be a very sensitive subject. In all of my other organizations i have worked we did not allow due to liability. What are your thoughts and or legal standings? 

At our shelter, we find our special needs volunteers to be a valuable asset. Most of them do very basic tasks like sweeping/dishes/trash/etc or socialize with cats. Most are accompanied by an assistant who is responsible for supervising them. Special needs adults who come in to volunteer must have a guardian/aid/case worker to contact if need be in order to be apart of the program. We RARELY have any issues and I feel it adds a great deal to both their lives and lives of our residents. 

Amy

I wish that was our experience. We have some good assistants but most have been problematic and not attentive. They don't want to do the non animal stuff either. I appreciate your input though. 

Laundry.  Laundry and more laundry.  While they wait for the machines - sweeping.  Then some laundry.