Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi Everyone! 

I'm interested in finding out more information on how volunteer mentor programs work for those of you that run programs like that in your shelter. We have some volunteers that help us out with mentoring other volunteers, but nothing formal. I'm interested in possibly starting something like that at our shelter to help further with volunteer engagement and connection. I'm interested in hearing what works as well as what doesn't (or hasn't for your org).

Thanks!
#PeopleManagement(includingVolunteerIntegration)

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Erin Ellis
Community Engagement Director
Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe

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Volunteer & Community Partnerships Specialist
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We have a system where volunteers, once they have served a number of hours and shown they have the routines down, can be promoted to Lead Volunteers and train others. It works quite well. Volunteers still do the usual orientation, species specific training, and work with staff to be directly introduced to animals, but the leads show them the cleaning and enrichment tasks. I used to do most of the on-site training hands-on one-on-one and liked getting to know each volunteer that way, so I was reluctant to turn it over at first. But quickly realized it made better use of my time to have volunteers show other volunteers the ropes.

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Michele Graves
Pasado's Safe Haven
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