Cats Protection currently provides voucher assistance to certain smaller charities to help fulfil its objective of neutering. The vouchers cover some of the cost of neutering and can be used only for feral cats, neutering enquiries from owners of cats, or as part of campaigns, but are not able to be used for the neutering of the charity’s own rehomed animals, the cost of which we consider to be the responsibility of the charity concerned.
We impose certain strict criteria on charities wishing to work with us and we aim to focus on charities working in areas without cover of a Cats Protection branch. The funds available for supporting other charities are limited and at present we are not accepting new applications from charities for the foreseeable future. Our support to existing partner charities continues subject to available funds.
Local councils are working with some of our most challenging customer groups and we have been working proactively with many of these to achieve our goal of getting more high-risk cats neutered for some time. Vouchers are available to dog wardens, animal welfare officers, animal health inspectors and environmental health officers. We provide pads of vouchers to enable you to have these in vans or cars, housing offices or tenant management meetings, so you can issue them on the spot.
We are continuing to accept requests for help from councils, so for more information, please contact 03000 12 12 12 (9.30am-1pm Monday to Friday). We are hugely grateful to those proactive council staff who work with us, for all their extra efforts beyond the statutory minimum, and we know this is appreciated by the communities you serve. We especially appreciate the efforts made during the current period of uncertainty over funding of local authorities.
As with councils, we recognise that you are in a unique position to make a difference. We work with several housing authorities, some of whom hold voucher stocks at local housing offices to provide on the spot vouchers to tenants needing their cat neutered, or have pads held by housing officer teams. If you’d like to work with us in this way, please contact 03000 12 12 12 (9.30am-1pm Monday to Friday).
We are continuing to accept requests for help from social landlords, so for more information, please contact 03000 12 12 12 (9.30am-1pm Monday to Friday). We are hugely grateful to these associations and trusts, and especially their proactive and caring staff who are working hard to support their tenants and their tenants’ pets, and especially so during the current financial and funding climate.
To achieve our aim of improving the routes of neutering – and supporting those professionals within local government who work in an animal welfare role, Cats Protection’s Neutering team has run several animal welfare seminars for local councils in the South East in 2009, Leeds in February 2010, and Gloucestershire in June 2010. All were well attended, highly successful with fantastic feedback from delegates, and over 140 officers from 70 local councils have now attended. In November 2011 we collaborated with the National Dog Wardens Association to run a joint animal welfare seminar held at our National Cat Centre in Sussex.
We would like to thank the following organisations who supported the running of these events with their time and expertise: Feline Advisory Bureau, RSPCA, Rotherham MBC, Stockton Council, Wood Green Animal Shelters, Battersea, Wirral Council, Ameyzoo, World Horse Welfare, Monkey World Primate Rescue Centre, MDC Exports Ltd and Medichem.
If you are a local authority or other public sector worker whose role regularly brings you into contact with cat owners, and are interested in finding out more about how Cats Protection’s assisted neutering scheme can be extended to support animal wardens, EHOs and other enforcement staff whose roles bring them into contact with cats, please contact 03000 12 12 12 (9.30am-1pm Monday to Friday).