Hollie Sevenoaks of Dogs Trust and Peter Kiraly of the Hungarian Rex Foundation Dog Shelter on setting up a responsible animal ownership education programme.
For more see www.icawc.org
Use key letters to spell something out at the end. Brief intro into me and UK education programme
We have 2 strands to our education programme, education workshops and education resources, we bring these together by using the resources as a pre or post workshop activity.
Important to be clear on what the aims are of your education programme – what will your call to action be? Your aims should be achieveable
What do you want to say? Key messages should communicate your aims and objectives to your audience. These are the key points you want children to know, learn more about and investigate. This should then lead to change in attitudes, behaviour and improved knowledge in the future. Are you using children to convey the messages at home? Are you using the powerful marketing term ‘pester power’ as a way of reaching parents? What are you asking children to do? Give them responsibility that is practical and realistic, designing a poster, peer educating for example. Always remember to keep them safe. Don’t inundate them with loads of information. If your messages are dog care – then ask children to give their dog a fresh bowl of water every day or even a stroke – something that they can do safely and on their own
You have chosen your message, now you need to know who to get it to. Be clear on your target audience and what their capabilities are. 7 years olds are not responsible for taking pets to the vet so don’t ask them to. We talk to the 7-11 age group as this is the age where children are starting to form opinions, they can fulfil basic tasks and they share with their peers. We will talk more about different groups you may want to talk to later in the presentation.
You’ve got your key messages, your target audience and now you need to shape that into resources. By having both resources and workshops you are offering leave behind material to carry on the learning. The children have something to show their parents and a record of what they have done. By having resources you can tap into different learning, such as english, art, Resources can range form anything from booklets for the school, to photos, toys that we you can leave behind and get kids to write a diary on the care etc
If your doing workshops in the classroom – you can reiterate the key message you are trying to get across. By them meeting you in person and sharing your passion and enthusiasm you are getting them on board to your cause. You can also find out more from the community how they feel about animals what they believe the problem might be. By engaging them in a conversation about how they think they can help means you are empowering them to make a difference and challenging (constructively) any misconceptions. Younger kids need quick short activities, older pupils will get benefit from more detailed activities like debates and discussions.
Do your research – who else is going into schools? Environmental charities, ECO schools, other charities or welfare groups, aid groups? When looking at maltese schools we saw that only 2 other organisations went into schools, whereas in the UK we are battling with hundreds of organisations and companies all wanting children’s attention. Speak to other charities and organisations and find out how they do it – what could make you different or stand out more? Is there a reward programme for schools – something that they receive for taking part? What is in it for schools?
How did we get the appointment? We just asked for it. Also their involvement – which other than approval, they could choose, how much they would like to be involved in It could work for you if the Ed department wants to be involved. This will provide credibility and perhaps a list of contacts and ensure that schools consider your programme more favourably. Also opens the door to schools. Ask the ed department if they want to add your logo. Stay away from funding aspects. If you suggest that they need to pay for anything your ideas may get thrown out before you even start! You want to make it as easy as you can for everyone. What is the system in schools? Who do you need to approach? Minister of education?
Once you have met with the right people – put it all down in a proposal and make it as clear as possible. Keep to bear facts about the ideas and the programme but make it clear you want to work in conjunction with them and the teachers – you are not trying to make their job harder
Anywhere where children congregate is a potential audience. Take advantage of the fact that someone has got the children in a room and given you an audience. Are there key areas you want to target first? These are all places that we go to and talk to.
Sample of a direct mail and a advertorial in an education mag.
Another thing that worked well for us is a letter we sent directly to the schools, sometimes highlighting a particular animal welfare related incident that happened in the community. By offering our positive workshops we leave the children with upbeat messages
Create relationships… Promote your education programme Chat to pupils, teachers and schools Link to other organisations Raise awareness of your work Our social networking includes. . . - Facebook – Dogs Trust has 48,000 fans! - Twitter – we have over 7,000 followers! - Bebo - You Tube channel
Show you have a commitment towards children’s education and that you want to continue the learning
You can fufill different needs but on the whole it helps to raise the status of dogs Man’s best friend, useful in so many ways
Special needs groups.
We have lots of spare resources based on our TNR project in Romania – please feel free to take a copy