If you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to recently, we’ve been keeping ourselves very busy working on a few projects. We are delighted to let you know that today, we are releasing our new free training course supporting non-animal welfare professionals and individuals working in or around the home to recognise and act on “The Link” between abuse of animals and abuse of people!
Thanks to the generosity of the Pets Foundation, which awarded us a Preventing Pet Relinquishment grant, we have created this new course and resources.
Protecting Animals, Protecting People: In the Home is a course suitable for a broad range of professions and people. They could be a paramedic or a police officer, knowingly called to the home as a result of a domestic abuse report, or a social worker called out in such an event.
They could be a health or social care professional, such as a midwife, district nurse, health visitor or carer, who spots something when they’re working in a home, and their professional curiosity is raised when they spot something they’re just not sure about in terms of how the people and pets are interacting.
They could be the plumber called to fix a leak who is concerned when they see the animals’ living conditions and is unsure what they can or should do.
This course is designed with input from subject matter experts in these areas to offer an introduction to domestic abuse, abuse of children, abuse of animals and “The Link” between the three; how individuals and professionals might be able to respond safely and appropriately whilst offering support in these circumstances, whether they have a mandatory safeguarding duty or not.
It’s free, it’s modular, it’s bite-sized, it’s learn-at-your-own-pace, it’s an hour long (longer if you dive deeper into the further resources!) and it’s available now on our NEW learning platform, made possible from some very supportive friends in the veterinary world – they’d rather remain anonymous. We are incredibly grateful to the support that they have given us, alongside the Pets Foundation, to make this course possible and more. You can access the course and more on our Virtual Learning page here.
Domestic abuse is a public health crisis, and “The Link” is truly a One Health, One Welfare issue. The Links Group works to raise awareness of the link between the abuse of animals and the abuse of people. We do this through collaboration, research, training and advocacy. Our vision is A world free from the abuse of people and animals.
It has been a busy time developing this course. We’ve worked in partnership with so many allied professions, professionals and organisations, as well as a number of generous individuals and supporters who have kindly given their time freely and willingly. We are aware that not everyone wants to take the credit for this, but we would like to say a huge THANK YOU to our benefactors, our tech team, our expert advisory panel, our graphic designer and to those who have shared and recorded content for us. We want to thank our colleagues at the National Link Coalition, particularly Mark Randell at the Naturewatch Foundation, for the incredible work he and his team are doing on Protect Animals. Protect People campaign.
We are grateful for the ability to work alongside each other to pursue the same end goal: a world free from the abuse of people and animals.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this course and the associated resources, and to developing further content in response to the feedback of our learners and partners.
