Volunteers

Our work would not be possible without the help of a large team of dedicated volunteers.  We have two training centres, one in Saunderton (Buckinghamshire) and the other in Bielby (East Riding of Yorkshire). If you don't live near either of our training centres don't be discouraged, there are still ways to volunteer with us.

If you’re interested in getting involved and becoming part of our committed volunteering team please read through our current volunteering opportunities below. To request a volunteer application form please click HERE or write to the address below stating which volunteering opportunity you would like to apply for.

Volunteering Applications Officer
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People
The Grange
Wycombe Road
Saunderton
Buckinghamshire
HP27 9NS

For any further information please contact Linda Carter, volunteering recruitment officer on 01844 348122 or email volunteer@hearingdogs.org.uk

Work experience

Our work experience placement involves working in kennels over a 1 - 2 week period. This role is currently only available at The Grange, Buckinghamshire.

Volunteering in kennels is a varied role and would be to assist our Kennel Welfare Officers with general daily tasks. This could include: making up dog feeds, stuffing Kong’s for the dogs, playing with dogs in the compound, dog walking, picking up dog faeces, cleaning when required and assisting with grooming. If you have a keen interest in dogs this might be the ideal volunteering role for you. This role is offered as a one or two week work experience placement and is open to anyone over the age of 14 on a first-come-first-served basis. 

For further information and to check availability please email lynne.fleming@hearingdogs.org.uk

 

Brood Bitch and Stud Dog Fosterers

Buckinghamshire centre only

The Hearing Dogs Breeding Scheme is continually looking for volunteers willing to offer a long term home to one of our brood bitches or stud dogs. All dogs will be at least 12 months old. Each dog is carefully matched to a new volunteer fosterer to ensure the best partnership. Fosterers then receive support, advice and home visits from the Hearing Dogs team to ensure each dog thrives in its new home. Holiday boarder volunteers can look after the dog if you want to go on holiday. If you foster a bitch, volunteer home whelpers are also available if you can't the 7-8 weeks of 24 hour care that may be needed for mums and pups.

Fosterers are required to live within an hour and a half's drive of our Buckinghamshire centre and to attend the centre for matings, health checks and regular training classes. Volunteers need to be 18 years or over.

Emergency Hearing Dog Care

(Temporary basis and only available if a hearing dog partnership living in your area requires assistance)

An emergency temporary carer offers to collect and temporarily care for a working hearing dog in their locality when one of our hearing dog recipients is unable to do so. You would be offering reassurance that a much loved hearing dog is being cared for in the comfort of a home environment. Please contact us to see if there are any opportunities in your area. Volunteers need to be 18 years or over and will be required to undertake a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) disclosure check under the terms of the Police Act 1997 (Part V).

Hearing Dog Walkers

(only available if a hearing dog partnership living in your area requires assistance)

A hearing dog walker offers to regularly exercise a working hearing dog when a hearing dog recipient in their locality is unable to exercise their dog. This may be a short term activity or a long term arrangement. Either way, you will be offering peace of mind to one of our hearing dog recipients that their treasured hearing dog is being given the exercise he needs. Volunteers nned to be 18 years or over and will be required to undertake a CRB check as above. Please contact us to see if there are any opportunities in your area.

Volunteer Speakers

January/February 2010: We currently need more speakers in all areas of the UK, particularly Scotland, Wiltshire, Kent, East Anglia, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire, Cornwall, Cumbria and the North.

Hearing Dogs for Deaf People has a dedicated network of volunteers throughout the United Kingdom that work to promote awareness of the Charity and to raise funds for the training of dogs.

Registered Speakers are our regional ambassadors who spread the word to groups and organisations in their local area.  The role is an important one as often this is the first time that people will have heard about the wonderful work our dogs do and how they change the lives of deaf people.  As well as promoting the Charity our speakers also help raise much needed funds and encourage others to do the same, perhaps by leaving a legacy in their will or participating in a sponsored event on our behalf.  This is invaluable as Hearing Dogs currently receives no government or Lottery funding and rely totally on the generosity of individuals and organisations.

Speakers visit groups such as WIs, Towns Women Guilds, Rotary Clubs, Fellowships, Brownies & other similar youth groups, schools, etc. We do not charge groups but we do accept donations they may wish to give. How many talks you give and how far you travel to give them is up to you. As a guideline, giving at least one talk a month is preferable and we reimburse travel expenses at 30p per mile for up to 100 mile round trip.

All training, equipment and ongoing support is provided by the Charity. To find out more about this very fulfilling way to help spread the word about our work, get in touch.

Fundraising Branches

The volunteers who form the Charity's branch support network are an essential part of Hearing Dogs.  They raise valuable funds, inspire local support and sow the seeds which will generate income from other sources.  We could not have achieved our present success without them.  Today we need this loyal support more than ever and are actively looking for volunteers willing to join or start a branch. Branch members meet to decide on ways to raise valuable funds and organise their own events with the support of Regional Fundraisers who have in depth knowledge of the local area.

It takes well motivated and willing volunteers to set up a local fundraising branch.  Three people are the necessary minimum for Full Branches, to take the roles of the officials: chairman, secretary and treasurer.  Concise Branches have two officers: branch organiser and treasurer.  Both types of branches work in exactly the same way and can recruit as many or as few branch members as they like, but really the more the merrier!

If you would like to start a branch or join an existing one…..
Contact Fiona Jones, Fundraising Administrator on 01844 348148 or email fiona.jones@hearingdogs.org.uk, and we will arrange to come and talk to you and your friends about forming a branch and answer any questions you may have.  Once established, the branch will be given an induction pack and be supported all the way. Existing branches are always pleased to welcome new members either keen to take an active role or simply able to offer occasional support.  Contact Fiona for details of your nearest branch and we can easily put you in touch.

You don't need to join a branch to offer your help
Branches also value the support offered by non-members.  Could you donate a raffle prize? Offer communication support?  Provide storage space (for display material, fundraising goods, tent, etc.).  Offer a venue: your home, your garden, a barn or a field … for branches to raise funds they need venues like these in which to hold events such as coffee mornings, charity sales, car boot sales, etc.

Could you spare a little time to become involved in your local branch, becoming part of the Hearing Dogs for Deaf People team?  We would really appreciate your help. 

Puppy socialising

January/February 2010: We are currently focusing our recruitment for socialisers in specific areas; namely Scunthorpe, Peterborough and Southampton. However, we also have satellite areas in  Exeter and Soham where socialisers are also needed. If you are interested and want to find out if you live within our catchment areas please contact the socialising team directly on 01844 348129 (voice and minicom) or puppy@hearingdogs.org.uk

Volunteer socialisers play a vital role in a potential hearing dog’s early training. As a socialiser you will be required to take a new recruit into your home for anything up to 12 months at a time, having the time and commitment to provide basic obedience training and to build confidence by introducing the dog to new people and experiences. Our trained staff will visit you in your home to carry out regular assessments and support visits. Socialisers must be able to attend regular puppy classes held at one of our training centres or a designated training facility in one of our satellite areas. Volunteers need to be 18 years or over.

 

B&B puppy socialising

This volunteering opportunity is only available at our Bielby training centre.

Some of our recruits undertaking their soundwork training like to go to a cosy home overnight rather than staying in kennels. This means we are looking for volunteers who live close enough to our training centre in East Riding of Yorkshire in order to pick up a hearing dog in training at 5pm on a weekday night, look after him overnight, then drop him back for training at 9am the following morning (the role also involves looking after the dog for the entire weekend). We currently do not need Bed and Breakfast socialisers at our Buckinghamshire centre.
  

Fostering

This volunteering opportunity is only available at our Saunderton training centre.

As a fosterer you would be required to have the time and commitment to provide short term foster care for our dogs in a loving home, ideally with the use of a secure garden. The dogs in your care would mainly be old, retired hearing dogs. They may not need a great deal of exercise but could have medical issues that might need managing. This may involve being happy and able to give a dog medication which could be anything from tablets to injections. We would greatly appreciate your help in giving the special care that some of these retired hearing dogs need after providing years of service to their deaf recipients. Fosters need to live within half an hour's drive of our centre in Saunderton, Buckinghamshire. 

Driving

This volunteering opportunity is only available at our Saunderton training centre.

Using a Hearing Dogs' vehicle, this role supports Hearing Dogs staff to transport people/dogs/equipment to and from various parts of the country wherever and whenever help is needed. This could include our Donnington trip (where staff from our two centres meet halfway), vet runs to our regular vet in Aylesbury, or returning/collecting a hearing dog from a recipient. This role is between Monday and Friday, generally 9am to 5pm (not weekends). Volunteers need to be 18 years or over and will be required to undertake a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) disclosure check under the terms of the Police Act 1997 (Part V). Volunteers need to hold a full driving license for this role. 

Housekeeping/Food Preparation

This volunteering opportunity is only available at our Saunderton training centre.

The Grange in Buckinghamshire has a lovely old farmhouse, a family unit and six cottages in order for recipients of hearing dogs, staff and other guests to stay on site when required. In this position you would be helping to clean and prepare the accommodation and maybe help preparing refreshments for the odd meeting or event. It would be great if we could have a helping hand on a regular basis but even offering a few hours on an ad-hoc basis would be appreciated. 

 

Other

From time to time we would welcome help with gardening or maintenance at our training centres. In addition, if you have a unique skill that you may want to share with us, do get in touch!

Fostering (Eire)

This role is involves looking after dogs before they reach our centres in the . They will be dogs we have sourced from the local area, selected by our staff to come over to one of our two training centres for further assessment. The dog may not need a great deal of exercise but they must have the use of a secure garden i.e. fully fenced. If the volunteer has other pet dogs they must be vaccinated. As a precaution, because some of the dogs may be rescue dogs with no history available to us, we require those volunteers have no young children living in the home.  Ideally we would want someone who is at home most of the day as initially we don’t necessarily know the dogs well enough to assess whether they will cope with being alone all day.

Volunteers would need to live in the following areas: Cork City or in the North Cork area - Mallow, Charleville, Kanturk or Newmarket and ideally would have their own transport. We would really appreciate help with this short term fostering as potentially it would mean we could bring more dogs over to the centres to determine whether they can become hearing dogs. To find out more, please get in touch.

General administration support

There can be many opportunities available to assist our staff in the offices at both centres in Saunderton and Bielby, for example, helping in the post room or answering phones in reception. Even routine tasks such as filing or data input are invaluable and very much appreciated by our staff. Depending on the Charity's activities, we sometimes need extra support in a particular area. This means you may be asked to help in more than one department e.g. Human Resources or Fundraising. The fundraising department benefits greatly from having regular volunteers with various office skills. Basic keyboard and computer skills would be an advantage as well as an eye for detail but we will provide the training required for you to assist us. Not all the office support opportunities require computer skills. We also need help with mail shots, appeals, filing and requests for our literature. If you're interested in helping on a regular or ad-hoc basis with any of our administration please contact our Volunteering Recruitment Officer who will be able to let you know when and where your help is most needed.