• Many of you will have come across our Pawprints Portfolio system.

• We use this innovative system to 'co-produce' individual progressive outcomes with our volunteers (day service participants).

• What that means is that every person who comes to SPPOT has an equal say in what they want to get from their day service.

• These choices are recorded in their Pawprints Portfolio as 'outcomes' or goals, with progressive steps towards that goal.

• Every day at 3pm we sit down with each person and record the activities they have done and what they have enjoyed most and least.

• On the last day of each person's week, we do a full review of their outcomes and record what they achieved and what they will work on next.

• All these daily and weekly sessions are fully supported with Total Communication resources such as signing, symbols and photos, according to what is needed and preferred.

• Every six months we review those outcomes using our flexible, easy read Paws for Progress sheet.

• One of the Paws for Progress each year is very informal and fun and just with the person's SPPOT Contact Person

• The other one is just as informal and fun, but can include parents, carers. social workers and so forth.

• If you would like more information about our Pawprints Portfolio system please get in touch.

• It's really important that everyone has a quiet, calm half an hour at 3pm with staff to complete their Pawprints Portfolios (see below)

• Therefore please arrange collection times to be 3.30pm at the earliest.

• If you arrive earlier, please park in the spaces opposite until 3.30pm and not in front of the building.

  
  

Thank you, we appreciate your support

• Group Dog & Puppy Training

• Dog Daycare

• Dog Walking

  
  

  Services for People:

• SPPOT Day Opportunities for Adults

• Volunteer as a Vocational Dog Walker with SPPOT

• Accredited Training

https://www.purewestradio.com/walk-the-path-for-wellbeing/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLzZZ5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETB2YUZCZkpkRFYybVFtM1RZAR7M2ZUwDNK1WHYGo678nYzU3W7I9DAfp3MmlLXMJJC9cn6omHXHGhKZ8A4PDg_aem_7iu6xQFGaQcwExyeijvLxw

We have registered SPPOT to take part and put us down for the section between Newgale and Broadhaven - because that direction takes you mostly downhill and from café to café :-D Seriously though, it also contains Haroldston Chins which has wheelchair accessible parking and a wheelchair/pushchair/mobility aid accessible tarmac path along one of the safest and most beautiful sections of the path (in our opinion anyway).

We would love for as many of our volunteers and families and carers and customers and a few dogs of course, to come along and enjoy the event and the after party.............

SPPOT is planning a bit of an after-party (which might be more like an after-rest, depending on how far you walk)!

We plan to have some food and drink and to hold our AGM very briefly and to present all the certificates and awards that our Volunteers and Dogs (and staff) have achieved so far in 2025.

When we learn more about the Walk the Path for Wellbeing event, we'll let you know the details of our after-party.

Until then, please drop us an email to support@sppot.co.uk or a WhatsApp to 07962220625 or speak to any staff member or call 01437 767648 to put your name down to be included in future updates.

Let's make it a day to remember for a very long time

We had intended this course to be for a few people who have shown an interest, to do over summer and autumn, but everyone wants to do it, including the staff, so that's what's happening!

As well as learning about looking after British wildlife, we will be creating some wildlife habitats. If you have any bird or bat boxes, bird feeders, bug hotels. hedgehog houses or similar that are not being used or need fixing up, please consider donating them to our keen trainees

The qualification covers a wide range of individual units including

Understanding the Importance of a Balanced Diet and Regular Exercise

Volunteering and Community Engagement

Introduction to First Aid

Resilience Skills

Leisure Activities for a Healthy Lifestyle

Equality and Diversity

Assertiveness Skills

Team Working

Improving Own Confidence

Recycling and Reusing Materials

It's going to take us a while to develop the course materials but we plan to use the down time the dogs have in the afternoon to do some relaxing, interesting and fun PSE training sessions

• This Padlet will be pinged out to all parents and carers and anyone else who's interested every month now, to keep you in the loop, involved and up to date in a nice easy to write and read format - you can even get the Padlet app for your phone!

  
  

Volunteering at SPPOT

• As most of you know, everyone who has a placement at SPPOT is a Volunteer, regardless of what support they receive, because they all choose to look after all the dogs as a big brilliant team.

• Several new Volunteers have joined us in the past year and all have settled in fantastically.

• We are now almost full in terms of placements in the dog daycare service - it took much longer than we thought to get to this point - mainly down to Covid!

• However, we still need dog walking volunteers and volunteer drivers, so if you know of anyone who might benefit from training to become part of the SPPOT Volunteer Dog Walking Team, please let us know.

  
  

Board of Directors

As a social enterprise, SPPOT has a board of volunteer directors who are like the trustees of a charity.

Our current Board is:

Kerri Bee

Amy Bishop

Chloe Roberts

Ann Jones

Paul Bee

Chloe is stepping down as she's going on maternity leave and she'll be staying in touch, but won't be coming back to the Board.

Therefore we are looking for at least one new Director and would love to welcome a parent or carer representative to sit alongside our dog customer representatives.

If you would be interested in attending monthly meetings to help steer the enterprise in the right direction and to take on a couple of hours work each month, in an area you are interested in, such as fundraising, supporting the team, overseeing the work we do and so forth, please get in touch.

Some of you may have seen the series of posts on Facebook and Instagram showcasing our wonderful staff team.

This is the biggest staff team we've ever had as we're nearing capacity now. This means there's just so much experience, expertise, enthusiasm, compassion and fun going on every day. Here's the list of all the staff with the main work mobile numbers too:

Full Time

• Kerri Bee - Enterprise Manager 07962220625

• Vicki Pinch - Team Leader 07852758801

• Kath Quant - Assistant Team Leader 07535136974

• Beth Davies - Development Worker and Total Communication Coordinator

• Erin Lewis - Development Worker & Social Media

Part Time

• Sylvia Smith - Development Worker (4 days)

• Jayne Dean - Development Worker (3 days)

• Helen Roberts - Development Worker (2 days)

• Shona Rendell - Administrator (3 days)

• Caitlin Ryan - Dog Trainer and Behaviour Practitioner

Relief Staff

• Caitlin Ryan - also our lead Dog Trainer and Behaviour Practitioner

• Amy Mullet - also one of our Dog Trainers

• Karen Chandler

• Lisa Gladstone

• Paul McPherson

Recent & Forthcoming Changes

• Lorraine McHugh has switched from 2 days Development Work to Relief Development Work

• Lucy Jones and Alison Tudor are new Relief Development Workers

• A new 4-day Development Worker will soon be starting work with us

All our Volunteers continue to do their Care & Welfare and Dog Training courses as soon as they settle in at SPPOT.

We also have our dog walking courses and a new accredited dog daycare course is ready to roll in the autumn.

Every dog related course we run has to be written by us (Kerri), then accredited by Agored, then we have to create all the course materials and so forth, so it's a very time consuming process and it's been a busy year so far.

Thankfully everyone was very interested in doing some 'off the shelf' training courses - details as follows -->

Plus lots more dog courses in the pipeline 😀