Call comes as the charity struggles to find homes for all animal companions after record number of people look to put their pet up for fostering after being made homeless
Animal care charity Pet Fostering Service Scotland is calling for an end to restrictive housing policies after its service has seen a record number of people looking to put their pets up for fostering.
The charity has seen over 1,000 enquiries to use Pet Fostering Service Scotland’s aid this year, a rise in over 20% compared to last year, and is now unable to find a foster home for all pets of owners in need, which could result in pets not having a safe place to stay.
With pets often abandoned by the people they depend on for care and support, Pet Fostering Service Scotland helps those in emergency situations who are eager to keep their furry companions.
Due to a multitude of reasons, pet owners can experience serious disruption to their home lives, often resulting in the dilemma of how to survive whilst also keeping their beloved pet.
Pet Fostering Service Scotland is a charity which has been supporting pet owners for 40 years. Now, the charity is calling for a ban on restrictive housing policies.
Those who have been evicted and made homeless can often feel there is no option other than to abandon their pets. According to the charity implementing less restrictive housing policies could avoid situations like these taking place.
Often accommodation for those who have either been made homeless or require refuge has a no pet policy. There has also been a rise in pet owners looking for new accommodation that accepts pets, currently having to wait one year for suitable housing to become available.
As a result, Pet Fostering Service Scotland has had to put pets into fostering for a year or longer, which is detrimental to the animal’s health as it is too long a period. This can also be distressing for owners due to the loss of consistent and familiar companionship provided by pets.
The cost-of-living increase has had a significant impact on finding temporary accommodation for those who have been made homeless, as most housing options exclude the homing of pets.
Pet Fostering Service Scotland has processed over 1,000 enquiries for pet care across Scotland this year. 37% of those were from people in a homeless or re-housing situation and as a result could not care for their pets in the short term.
Bob Sinclair Chair at Pet Fostering Service Scotland said:“For those who have been made homeless or are facing an emergency situation, being housed alongside their beloved pet is so important.
“The significance of the companionship between a pet and owner is important for wellbeing for both sides. Changing restrictive housing policies and allowing pets into temporary accommodation could be life changing for these individuals and result in far fewer abandonment scenarios.”
The Pet Fostering Service is non-chargeable and relies solely on donations for the work they provide, and volunteers can apply to become pet fosterers.
Pet fostering gives volunteers the companionship of a pet without the long-term responsibility and can bring a sense of reward from helping those in need, both human and animal.
The charity currently has over 300 volunteers.
If you are interested in fostering a pet or want to hear more about the charity, please visit https://www.pfss.org.uk/
Scottish Book Trust has announced ten schools who will receive fully-funded author residencies this school year to inspire a lifelong love of reading and writing.
The residencies will also give professional writers the opportunity to build relationships with the school and work together on a creative project. Longstone Primary School will work with storytellers Macastory and Woodlands School will work with comic artist and writer Malcy Duff.
The Live Literature School Residencies Programme, now in its sixth year, is funded by the Walter Scott Giving Group and delivered by Scottish Book Trust, the national charity changing lives through reading and writing.
Three ASN centres were also awarded fully-funded author residencies in the third year of the Additional Support Needs strand of the programme, funded by the Mohn Westlake Foundation.
Schools across the country were invited to apply to the programme which brings professional authors into the classroom to inspire and engage pupils.
Each school taking part in the programme will receive 12 fully-funded residency sessions and ASN schools will receive 15 fully-funded sessions, carried out by an author from Scottish Book Trust’s author directory. It includes over 600 professional writers, poets, playwrights, illustrators, performance poets and storytellers.
Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust, said: “The Live Literature School Residencies Programme is incredibly important, as it allows authors to build relationships with a school over time, working together with pupils on a dedicated project.
“Many of these projects will work with the local community and will also build on the school’s COVID recovery plan, addressing issues such as pupil wellbeing; rebuilding reading and writing cultures and also lost transition time for P7/S1.
“We are grateful to our funders the Walter Scott Giving Group and the Mohn Westlake Foundation for making this programme available to all schools including ASN settings.”
The residencies will run across the 2021-22 school year and finish by May 2022. The Walter Scott Giving Group has funded the Live Literature School Residencies Programme for six years, and the Mohn Westlake Foundation has funded the ASN School Residencies Programme for three years. As well as an author residency, schools will receive a resources grant of £500.
Each school’s project will be showcased on Scottish Book Trust’s website, alongside suggested learning resources and helpful tips to make the most of the residency sessions.
Angela Pearston, Head Teacher at Longstone Primary School, said: “We are so excited about our forthcoming residency and hope that it will inspire and motivate our pupils to have confidence in their abilities as storytellers and writers.”
Macastory said: “We are delighted to be involved in the project and are excited to explore stories of the past from the Longstone area of Edinburgh with the children. We’ll see where that takes their imaginations! We can’t wait to see how the pupils will imagine their version of Longstone’s amazing history.”
Karen Byrne, Principal Teacher Support for Learning at Woodlands School, said: “Woodlands is excited to explore journeys of hope and resilience through word and sequenced visuals. We want to share and establish confidence in our personal and collective voice and continue this beyond the residency.”
Malcy Duff said: “I’m excited about offering comic book storytelling as a creative medium for learners to develop their own visual language and explore new narratives that challenge the old. I hope this work will increase participants’ confidence and expand the use of comic book storytelling as an important form of communication.”
Cats Protection has welcomed ground-breaking new laws on animal welfare in Scotland but said more still needed to be done to help cats.
The charity says new licensing regulations which come into force today will help to stamp out rogue cat breeders who put profit before the welfare of kittens and cats.
Cats Protection’s Advocacy & Government Relations Officer for Scotland Alice Palombo said: “These new licensing laws have come at a time when we need them the most.
“Over the past 18 months of the pandemic, a combination of increased demand for kittens and restrictions on household visiting has created the perfect conditions for unscrupulous breeders to flourish.
“We’ve heard countless stories of how people have been duped into buying underage, poorly kittens which either haven’t survived or have needed costly veterinary care. It’s not just the kittens that suffer – behind closed doors there are many female cats forced to have litter after litter in poor welfare conditions.”
Under the new licensing laws, anyone breeding three or more litters of kittens in any 12-month period must be licensed, and female cats will be limited to having a maximum of two litters within a year.
Breeders will also be banned from breeding cats with extreme traits which can lead to health conditions, such as the Scottish Fold.
Erin Macqueen, 22, from Glasgow, had a devastating experience in March 2021 when the kitten she purchased for £250 turned out to be just five weeks old. The tiny kitten, named Frankie, died just a few weeks later from a condition believed to be related to its poor start in life.
Erin explained: “Frankie had been advertised as a male 12-week-old kitten. When I took Frankie to the vets, I was told she was actually a girl, and was in fact only five weeks old.
“Alarm bells had rung when the seller delivered her to me – she wasn’t even in a cat carrier, the seller just had her tucked under her coat. I could see straight away that Frankie was tiny, but by that point it’s just too heart-breaking to say no. I didn’t know what I’d be sending her back to.”
After becoming unwell, Frankie was diagnosed with untreatable Feline Infectious Peritonitis and had to be put to sleep, causing huge emotional distress to Erin and leaving her with a £750 vet bill.
She said: “It was the vet’s opinion that she developed this as a result of being bred in poor conditions, probably among many other cats and kittens.
“With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that Frankie had probably been one of many kittens just bred and sold to make a quick profit. In her last days of life, she suffered greatly, and it was a very stressful and emotional time.”
With the new laws coming into force today, Cats Protection is now launching its Time is Meow campaign to ask the Scottish Government to go further to help protect cats.
The five-point action plan details what is needed to continue to ensure cats are better protected in Scotland, including the introduction of compulsory microchipping for pet cats, a ban on snares, encouraging landlords to allow renters to own cats, inclusion of animal welfare in the National Curriculum and further work to tackle unscrupulous cat breeding.
Alice added: “Scotland is leading the way in the UK when it comes to regulating cat breeding and animal rescues. As well as these new licensing laws, Scotland also has strict laws on air gun licensing which helps protect cats from the random attacks we see in Wales and England.
“This is all great news, but there is always more to be done and we want to see Scotland go further.
“Our Time is Meow cat welfare action plan includes issues which will benefit people as well as cats – in particular, encouraging landlords to allow their tenants to own a cat. At a time when we’re all spending more time at home, pet ownership is vitally important to our wellbeing and for helping tackle loneliness.”
Improving wellbeing has been Carnegie UK’s mission for over 100 years. With our new strategy and accompanying rebrand, we are signalling a refocus on that core purpose, putting it at the heart of all of our work.
We believe that if there was ever a moment for a wellbeing organisation to lean into its mission, then that moment is now. Our new strategy is centred on our model of collective wellbeing: what is required for all citizens to live well together.
Achieving collective wellbeing requires social, economic, environmental, and democratic wellbeing outcomes to be seen as equally important and given equal weight. We will be advocates for public policy approaches that embrace and reflect this balance.
Whatever we are working on, our values of being motivated by change; collaborative; challenging, and kind will shape our approach. These are new values for the organisation and reflect what are recognised as our existing strengths, as well as our aspirations for the future.
As Carnegie UK embarks on this new strategy we do so very much in the spirit of partnership.
The social change eco-system is extensive and complex. Different players bring different approaches, perspectives, and skills. It is important to us to understand our place in this system and to make a distinctive and useful contribution, complementing that of others and being a good collaborator and partner.
We are also committed to keeping learning. The field of wellbeing has developed a great deal over the past decade, but there is much more to discover, and we are keen to add to the collective evidence base.
We also want to know more about how change comes about, and how to use the resources at our disposal to make an effective and persuasive case for the actions and practice which will lead to improvements in wellbeing.
I am hugely grateful to all of those who have supported us in the development of our new strategy. This includes the whole Carnegie UK team, our Board of Trustees and the many partners and stakeholders who have engaged with us at different stages of the journey and generously shared their views and experience.
I hope that you enjoy reading about our new strategic direction. Please do visit our website where you can find more information about our approach and our initial programmes of work.
“… by such means as the Trustees may from time to time select as the best fitted from age to age, remembering that new needs are constantly arising”, or “how to solve a problem like improving wellbeing?”
Along with his substantial endowment, Andrew Carnegie left his UK and Ireland Trustees an obligation to undertake regular reviews of the most effective means of securing his mission to improve wellbeing (writes Carnegie UK Trust Chief Executive SARAH DAVIDSON).
This has translated over time into quinquennial strategy reviews and the subsequent production of 5-year strategy documents. Those of you who follow our work may have spotted that the most recent one (2016-2020) expired at midnight on 31st December. So, what’s next for the Carnegie UK Trust?
For an organisation whose entire purpose is focussed on the improvement of wellbeing, the past decade has been a remarkably fertile one in public policy terms. Across the world, as well as here in the UK, the concept of “societal wellbeing” – everyone having what they need to live well now and in the future – has gathered momentum. The Trust has been at the heart of that debate, bringing accumulated expertise to policy and practice and adding to our own understanding as we went along.
It has been an incredibly busy period, no more so than in the last few years. In our work on digital futures; fulfilling work; enabling wellbeing; and flourishing towns we have ranged widely across the public policy landscape as well as the actual geographies of our 5 jurisdictions. In doing so, we have enjoyed multiple collaborations and partnerships, developed a diverse playbook of approaches, and invested in the thinking and doing which we believed were necessary to stimulate positive change. It has been challenging and exhilarating and – at times – exhausting.
As we entered 2020, we knew that it was almost time to draw breath, to look back and to look forwards and to take stock, as Andrew Carnegie asked us to. And then came the pandemic, and the year that was to have been one of review and reflection became the year when we doubled down on the insights and learning we had gained throughout the strategy period and brought them to bear on the greatest challenge to individual, community and societal wellbeing of our lifetimes.
However, we quickly discovered that 2020’s clarity of focus on questions of wellbeing actually acted as a stimulus to our strategy review, rather than a distraction. We added to our existing evidence base about what influences wellbeing, and we worked alongside partners old and new to understand how Covid-19 was affecting communities across the UK and Ireland.
At the same time, the experience of remote working during a pandemic encouraged us to reflect on ourselves. What is our identity as an organisation when we are not working together in our familiar building in Dunfermline? What does it mean to work across the UK and Ireland when you never leave your home? Faced with immense challenges to public policy and practice, how can a team of 16 FTE reasonably make an impact, and what does “impact” mean anyway, in our business?
In the course of last year, we started to address some of these questions, drawing on the extensive experience and insights of our own team and Board of Trustees, as well as undertaking a thorough stakeholder survey carried out on our behalf by The Diffley Partnership.
We heard some very encouraging and positive things during this process.
People who engaged with our work in 2016-2020 said that they regarded our activities as relevant and influential. We have strong relationships and active networks across all the jurisdictions where we operate, and across sectors, allowing us to fulfil a valuable convening function.
The quality of our work, our approach to partnerships and our varied menu of ways of working are all perceived as strengths, as are my colleagues who are highly valued by all who engage with them. As the Trust’s still-relatively-new CEO I am privileged to enjoy the reflected glory of much of that feedback.
However, a period of reflection and review is most useful when it sharpens your ambition and signals future opportunities. So, while we are proud of the work that we have done over the past decade in order to improve wellbeing, we also recognise that in this rapidly changing world we must evolve our approach to build on the work we have done to date and become even more effective in pursuit of Andrew Carnegie’s mission.
This is what we are working on as we enter 2021.
We are exploring how to strengthen the focus on our USP, which is wellbeing. As part of this, we want to invest more consciously in our ongoing learning as an organisation (both at a governance and an operational level), and we intend to become much more explicit about our values and how they shape us and our work.
We need to revisit the sheer volume of activity that we undertake and reflect on the trade-offs between individual busyness and the overall depth, quality, and impact of our output as a team.
We want to understand more fully how the work we do and the way that we present our evidence connects with those we seek to influence – or doesn’t. Does everyone understand what we mean when we talk about “wellbeing” and if not, how can we communicate that more effectively?
It’s also important for us to keep abreast of and emulate the very best practice in assessing impact in the complex world of social change. We are currently inviting expressions of interest from people interested in working with us on refreshing our brand, and also on a review of best practice on impact. If either of these falls into your area of expertise, we’d be keen to hear from you.
At the same time, we are continuing to assess our own ongoing development as an organisation.
In common with many others in our sector, the events of summer 2020 added further urgency to the challenge we had already set ourselves to examine our policy and practice on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
We’ve started some important conversations, but we have much more still to do here. We were already auditing our environmental practice a year ago, but an 11-month period without travel has shown us what is really possible with the aid of technology and the goodwill of partners.
The realities of lockdown created opportunities for team members to step into new spaces, take on additional responsibilities and demonstrate the power of collective leadership. Our Organisational Development strategy will be founded on our strengthened belief in the capacity and desire of individuals, teams, and the organisation as a whole to learn and grow.
So, that’s what we are up to here at the Trust, while at the same time making sure that we bring any remaining work under the 2016-20 strategy to a positive conclusion. The next six months will be the time when we lay down the critical foundations for successful delivery in the years ahead.
We expect to publish our 2021-2026 strategy in the summer, along with the accompanying operating plan. Between then and now, we will go on sharing updates on how our review is going. We are always keen to learn from others, so if you have experience and learning to share, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Edinburgh Leisure has unveiled their September offer, designed to help thousands of new customers to try new activities and get more active this autumn. With recent research highlighting the dangers of inactivity, the not-for-profit company which manages City of Edinburgh’s Council leisure services is offering new members joining in September a free month in October.
With 30+ venues offering 9 swimming pools, 14 gyms and 700+ fitness classes per week, Edinburgh Leisure is the ‘biggest club in town’ providing the widest range of fitness classes, state of the art facilities and community based programmes across the capital, creating opportunities for everyone to get active, stay active and achieve more.
Catherine Wilson, Marketing Officer at Edinburgh Leisure said: “With the Paralympics just around the corner and with the Olympics recently finished, we hope it’s inspired people to sit less and move more. We’re passionate about providing opportunities and support for people to participate in physical activities and sport, whatever their age and stage.
“And for those joining in September, they’re going to be so busy with all the wonderful facilities that Edinburgh Leisure has on offer across the city centre that we’re urging them to keep October free, as well as giving them that month for free.”
From 26 August, new joiners will get one month free (October) when they join before the end of September. Existing members who refer a friend, who then joins, will receive £30 cash back.
With adult memberships starting from as little as £29.90, there is a range of packages, including swim, fitness, gym and climbing.
Many of Edinburgh Leisure’s gyms have had a recent refurbishment including Glenogle, Portobello, Craiglockhart, and The Royal Commonwealth Pool. Drumbrae Leisure Centre is also undergoing a major refurbishment, and is due for completion in October 2016. At the end of last year, Edinburgh Leisure had invested £1 million in fitness equipment in five of its 15 gyms.
Edinburgh Leisure gyms have the latest state of the art equipment including some of the newest cardiovascular machines; offer over 750 fitness classes per week including Les Mills Programmes; and have five modernised Victorian pools and the Royal Commonwealth Pool in their portfolio. They also recently launched Clip ‘n Climb at Edinburgh’s International Climbing Centre at Ratho, the first of its kind in Scotland.
Edinburgh Leisure is also running a weekly competition on their Facebook page to win one of five ‘My Zone’ belts. Visitors will be encouraged to tell Edinburgh Leisure what they are going to do to #SitLessMoveMore and #KeepOctoberFree. Winners will be picked at random on 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 September.
My Zone uses new technology and is a motivational belt which straps to the chest during exercise and tracks physical activity in real time and online.
The device measures the customer’s My Zone Effort Points (MEPs), a unique way of measuring activity and the results of exercise. It calculates calories burned, duration and time of activity, as well as factors including weight, muscle mass, body fat and heart rate.
A sod cutting ceremony was carried out last week to officially mark the start of construction work on the first of three health and social care centres in Edinburgh and West Lothian. Maureen Watt, Minister for Mental Health, officially cut the ground on the North West Edinburgh Partnership Centre in Muirhouse on 6 July.Continue reading First sod cut at North West Partnership Centre
With Edinburgh’s numerous festivals about to begin and with the Olympics just around the corner, festival goers and workers can keep up their energy levels and enjoy their fittest summer ever!
Edinburgh Leisure has launched its Summer Pass, so that during this summer of sport, everyone can keep active and healthy throughout the heady days of the festivals.
The Summer Pass offers unlimited access to the city’s 14 gyms, 9 swimming pools, over 700 Fitness Classes, saunas, steam rooms, Turkish Baths and climbing at the EICA until 31 August for £59 only, plus 25% off lots of other activities including golf and racquet sports.
A ‘Junior Summer Pass’ costs £39 for Under 18’s and juniors get access to racquet sports and golf for this price, on a turn up and play basis before 4 pm, Monday to Friday. Booking in advance is not possible. The Junior Pass will expire on 21 August 2016.
Catherine Wilson, Marketing Officer at Edinburgh Leisure, said: “Anyone lucky enough to be in Edinburgh for the festival knows it is always a fantastic atmosphere, and it takes energy to take in so many shows and party into the small hours.
“And during the year of the Rio Olympics, we’re inviting festival-goers and workers, visitors to the city and juniors to be inspired and keep their energy levels high by keeping fit and active throughout the summer.
“Classes like Zumba or Sh’bam are brilliant fun and a great way to get you in the mood to party, while a workout at the gym will boost your energy for the night ahead. We’ve also got some quick hit X-press gym classes, which used high intensity training (HIT) methods with explosive bursts of speed and activity to achieve a total workout in a short period of time, as 30 minutes. And if you have really overdone it, you can spend the morning chilling out with a swim and sauna, or even the Turkish Baths at Portobello.”
For further information simply pop into any Edinburgh Leisure venue across the city or visit www.edinburghleisure.co.uk
