*Names have been anonymised to protect identities

On 26 January, students at one of our specialist educational settings, Inscape House School, gained insight into the animal welfare industry as a part of the school’s careers programme.

The careers day was in collaboration with the UK’s largest feline welfare charity, Cats Protection, and included four different workshops featuring games, quizzes, and entertaining activities. They were customised to suit our learners from lower, middle and upper school, as well as our post-16 class.

“Cats, cats, cats! I enjoyed learning all about cats, their environment that I wasn’t aware of and all about the careers they have available. I went home and put into practice everything I had learnt with my own cats.” – *Amy, 15

“I think I could work at the Cat protection when I am older, as I learnt all about the skills and careers they have to offer!” – *Lily, 8

Thanks to the highly interactive sessions with Alice Gylee-Evans, Community Educations Officer for the North and Midlands regions at Cats Protection charity, the students learnt all about health and diseases, welfare and ethics, human-animal interactions, feline behaviour and rewarding career paths within the animal care industry.

In particular, our guest speaker gave the young people an up-close look at careers at Cats Protection in retail, fundraising, publicity and communications, as well as a range of volunteer opportunities, both hands-on with cats and those with no cat contact at all.

“My role is all about creating positive change in the way people interact with cats. Knowing that I’ve helped children and adults to better understand cats and seeing the impact, this can have on feline welfare has to be the best thing about my job.”

– Alice Gylee-Evans, Community Educations Officer at Cats Protection

“The Cats Protection workshop was beneficial for our students to learn in a visual way, enabling them to gain knowledge about cats, their welfare needs and the career options that are available to them in the future. We can’t wait to build on this connection with the Cats Protection charity, giving our learners more opportunities to help our students in the working world.”

– Danielle Eaton, Animal Assisted Intervention (AAI) Practitioner

Along with a lot of new knowledge and facts about cats, the students went home with free goodies and a range of informative and engaging resources kindly provided by Cats Protection.