I have generally made two sentence prompts and had staff take turns who is the "adopter" and who is the adoption counsellor. I think it's pretty powerful to have them mix in non-roleplaying, but rather what it would be like for them (either now or from a past perspective) to adopt. That way the "adoption counsellor" doesn't know if they are talking to their actual colleague about their lived experience or about a made-up case.
In terms of what the role-plays are, I'd look for things that are particularly triggering for your adoption counsellors' and their biases. Some ideas: gift animals, inebriated client, client who doesn't want the dog neutered, they're adopting a puppy for the child to learn responsibility, they want to declaw, don't believe in vaccines, don't have enough money for an adoption fee, one person in the family doesn't want a pet, believes in aversive training techniques.
At one point in my career, we merged with another adoption organization, and I had to work to retrain a group of staff which came from really restrictive adoption policies. There were a few clear pain points that were going to be hard to overcome, particularly indoor-outdoor cats. For those ones, we practiced our spiel about the issue at hand with a mouthful of (vegan) marshmallows. That did help to break down defenses...
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Emily Wood
Director
Broward County Animal Care
Fort Lauderdale FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-21-2023 01:18 PM
From: Amber Cabell
Subject: Adoption Counselor Training
Hello!
My organization is wanting to do a training workshop with our adoption counselors that includes some role playing exercises. Does anyone have any example materials that they've used and would be willing to share? Or any tips for exercises you have found most/least successful with your staff?
For context, we practice non-biased, open adoptions and are hoping to increase the matchmaking, counseling, and overall customer service skills of our adoption team.
Thanks in advance
for your feedback!
#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms
#EducationandTraining
#MarketingandSocialMedia
#PeopleManagement(includingVolunteerIntegration)
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Amber Cabell
Senior Manager of Operations
Lynchburg Humane Society
amber@lynchburghumane.org
http://lynchburghumane.org
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