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Students gain insight into day-to-day challenges faced by RSPCA

17 December 2020

Animal management students at Brinsbury College were given an insight into the running of rescue centres recently.

The students, who are studying towards their higher national diploma (HND) in Animal Management, enjoyed a day-long development centre which saw them take the role of an RSPCA Centre manager.

They were faced with tasks which mirror real-life challenges, from the day-to-day role of running a rescue centre to responding to the impact of Covid-19 – this included formulating an action plan to handle centre closures and how they would maintain the care of their animals.

They were also asked to come up with a fundraising plan which would generate £250,000, less than half the real-life amount that it takes to run a local RSPCA shelter.During the day, they were joined by Catherine Peerless, Head of Press and Media for the RSPCA – who took part in a virtual question and answer session with the students.

Catherine said: “It was great to work with the students. They had some really interesting questions about how the RSPCA has adapted to continue rescuing animals in need throughout the Coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s been a challenging time for staff at RSPCA rescue centres, they’ve been working around the clock to keep the animals in their care happy and create new ways of rehoming virtually to keep everyone as safe as possible.

“As a charity, we rely on kind donations from the public so we can continue helping the animals most in need and it was great to hear the students’ creative ideas for fundraising during a really difficult time.”

Lianne Grogan, Higher Education Progression Coach at the Chichester College Group, added: “This was the first development centre of this type that we have organised and it was fantastic to see how well the students responded.

“The idea of the centre is to provide the students with business challenges that directly reflect their industries and it assesses their graduate attributes, such as independent learning, interpersonal skills, professionalism and creativity.

“We were really pleased to be able to work with the RSPCA to deliver a session that really gives an insight into the challenges they are facing.

“The students responded really well and it was inspiring to see how they opened up during the day, growing in confidence. I think it has inspired a few of them and shown them the types of career they could consider.”

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