All our volunteers from administration, field response and shelter response need to complete our one-day Animal Evac NZ Foundation Course. It is classroom based and covers our induction for health/safety, vision/strategy, code of conduct, animal emergency registration systems, animal disaster management law and fundamentals. Please email info@animalevac.nz with your name and contact details to register your interest for the next course.
From this course, volunteers can specialise in one or more areas depending on their available time, interest, skills and experience. Following (or just prior to) the foundation course, responders are added to our D4H Team Management System where they can access details for specialist courses and track their training and other requirements. We have an Animal Evac Training Pathways document that may help you better understand our training system. We also have a list of suggested Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) too.
For those wanting to help us establish Pet Friendly Shelters in the community, along side human evacuation centres, this one day course will practically have you set up, operate and dismantle such pet friendly shelters, as well as operate our animal emergency registration system. Those with existing animal and veterinary experience are encouraged to become Shelter Response Team Leaders. In particular, those who have experience working in animal shelters or boarding facilities, along with veterinary professionals are encouraged to join this group. Those without veterinary qualifications, animal care or animal welfare qualifications also need to complete an animal first aid course.
Working in disaster conditions is not everyone’s cup of tea. But if you are prepared to roll up your sleeves and help with door to door urban searches for disaster affected animals and helping rescue these from floods to earthquakes, then this group may be for you. Ideally you will need to have either experience in emergency response and/or animal handling, in particular animals that may be scared and unfamiliar. Courses from rural fire, flood safety, bite prevention, tactical communications, urban search and rescue (awareness level) are available if you do not already have such credentials. During a response, we select volunteers from the field response group who have the appropriate credentials for the type of deployment. If you already have some of these credentials, and providing they are current we can add these to your profile so you don’t necessarily need to redo the training.
For everything horse related, this group is comprised of experienced horse owners and equine professionals who want to help during an emergency. From assisting evacuation, such as loading onto and driving horse floats to leading horses to safety, this group ensures horses are protected during disaster. Where capacity and expertise allow, this group may also assist other large animals. Responders from this group may be required to take some of the Field Response Group training, but also are trained in large animal rescue to a basic level or to support specialist teams like SPCA NRU and Massey VERT. Those without veterinary qualifications, animal care or animal welfare qualifications also need to complete an animal first aid course.
This group is for experienced emergency managers who have at least CIMS Level 4 and preferably hold a tertiary qualification in emergency management. This group provide leadership to responses, management of our D4H Incident Management System and liaison at emergency operations centres and meetings.
