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How we run the Service
Paws for Kids covers the whole of the North West of England - Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and parts of North Derbyshire and Cheshire. In total, the pet fostering service is available to women in 44 different refuges, hostels & safe houses.

We recruit and train a team of women volunteers to help us actually run the service. They attend a training course to ensure they have a thorough understanding of the issues and difficulties faced by families experiencing domestic violence, and are fully aware of the need for confidentiality.

These volunteers then receive ongoing training in animal handling, and our procedures regarding Pet Foster Carers and managing animal placements

Areas we cover on the course are: 

  • Domestic violence awareness
  • Refuges and confidentiality
  • Equal opportunities
  • Domestic violence and children
  • Domestic violence and animals

Our volunteers are an invaluable asset to Paws for Kids. Could you foster an animal on behalf of a homeless family in a desperate situation?

Paws for Kids is always in need of more people to foster cats, dogs and rabbits. 

For more information, contact us at Paws for Kidsor phone: 01204 394 842 Option 1

Please note: we are only able to accept people as Pet Foster Carers from the Lancashire, Greater Manchester & Merseyside

Pet Foster Carers come from all walks of life and backgrounds. They are recruited from around the region and these are the people who actually care for the animals in their own homes. Once they have successfully gone through our 'vetting' procedure, their details are added to our register of Pet Foster Carers.

When a woman with pet animals is referred to a refuge, we get a phone call with details about the animals. We then try to match up the animal to a suitable placement. For example, if we had a request for a placement for a dog that was snappy around young children, we would not place it in that environment. We would look for a placement where there were no young children. The Pet Foster Carers naturally always have the option of saying no at any particular time.

Once the placement is lined up, one of our women volunteers will arrange to go to the refuge or other safe place to pick the animal up. At this stage we like to meet the animals owner and have a chat with her and the children about their animals. We want to reassure them face to face that their animals are going to be well looked after, and returned to them when they are able to have them back.

Many of the women and children are extremely distressed when we come to take their animals away. They are in a traumatic situation anyway, and probably fear handing their beloved pets over to total strangers. It is important to us to build a trusting relationship with them if we can, so that they are not going to be fretting about their animals. After all, they have enough worries already.

Although they are not able to have direct contact with their animals while they are being fostered (due to the potential problems around safety) we keep them up to date with how they are, if there are any problems, and we send them photos of their animals to reassure them.

Meanwhile, the Pet Foster Carers are doing a fantastic job of caring for what can sometimes be quite traumatized animals too. They are not left on their own to cope. One of the workers at Paws for Kids is on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in case of emergencies, and we regularly phone and visit with advice to ensure it all runs as smoothly as possible.

If a placement doesn't work out, we also guarantee to move the animal as quickly as possible.

The Pet Foster Carers are not given any identifying information about the animal's owner, to make sure there is no way the violent man could ever trace his partner through the pets, or cause any problems for the Pet Foster Carers.

When the time comes for the Pet Foster Carers to hand back the animals, we know this can be upsetting for them too. On the one hand they are happy the animal is going back to the owner, who may have risked her own safety to get the animal out of the violent situation in the first place; but on the other, they may have been caring for this animal for 4 or 5 months and have grown to love it too.

Our Pet Foster Carers are very special people, who give such an enormous amount to help people and animals in difficulty.

"It was an enormous relief to discover this service existed – as the pets are dearly loved and an extension of our family."