Meet Woodgreen’s Outreach team
Our Outreach team make a huge difference to pets and people in the community. Whether it’s responding to calls for urgent help, delivering vital supplies to pet owners, visiting communities and providing health and wellbeing checks, or offering practical advice, the team are always on hand to help.
Meet the team who go above and beyond to help pets and their people. Find out when they joined Woodgreen, what their role involves and hear about their most memorable highlights.
Chris, community support manager
Chris has been working at Woodgreen for over 16 years and joined the Outreach team in 2021 to become our community support manager. Having previously been dog section manager, Chris certainly knows a thing or two about pets. One of the most rewarding things for Chris is being able to help pets and their owners. “While it’s important to keep pets and their people together, our aim is to help give people the opportunity and knowledge to do so.”
Natalie, community support team manager
Natalie joined the team in June 2022 after spending a year in our Pet Support team focusing on pet intake and advice. She says: “It’s been amazing to delve into all the work we do to prevent people having to give up their pet.” Since becoming our community support team manager, Natalie has worked hard to establish a new partnership with the Trussell Trust to grow our food bank support. Two new community education officers have joined the team and she’s supported the development of new processes to help the team work even more effectively in surrounding communities.
Read more about Woodgreen’s efforts to expand our food bank support.
Jo, community outreach officer
Jo is one of our four community outreach officers. She joined Woodgreen in 2014 after achieving a bachelor of honours degree in Animal Science. She worked as a handler on our Dogs team before starting a new adventure in Outreach two years later. Jo has a real interest in human behaviour change and is looking forward to expanding her knowledge with the rest of the team. The goal is to further their skills and help empower pet owners to make long term change. Jo enjoys working with all species, but guinea pigs are her favourite!
One of Jo’s most memorable pet stories is the time she supported a household of 26 cats with parvovirus. She enjoyed working collaboratively with other rescues when resources were stretched to help with cases like this. Read the full story.
Steph, community outreach officer
Steph joined Woodgreen’s Outreach team in 2020 after completing her Masters in Clinical Animal Behaviour. For over 30 years, Steph has been involved in cat rescue and has owned a number of dog walking and pet sitting businesses. Her favourite part of the job is creating support plans to suit the specific needs of each owner.
One of Steph’s work highlights to date is seeing pet owners progress and being able to make responsible and informed decisions when it comes to their pets. One case that springs to mind is about a cat who only ate cereal as a means of gaining weight.
Paiton, community outreach officer
Paiton joined Woodgreen in January 2021 after having previously worked in a zoo as a primate keeper. At first, Paiton worked as a small pet carer where her degree in Animal Behaviour and Welfare came into play. Here she was able to build upon her knowledge and experience of rabbits, guinea pigs, rodents, ferrets and chickens before joining the Outreach team in October.
In just a year, Paiton has supported lots of pets, one of her work highlights is carrying out multiple rabbit and small pet health and wellbeing checks in Dennis, the community outreach vehicle. “Some of these resulted in me supporting with dental problems, getting pets on the right diet, neutering and companionship.” Read more.
Serena, community outreach officer
Serena joined Woodgreen in December 2020 after spending eight years working with the RSPCA. In this time, Serena has worked with all domestic species, infants to senior pets, and she’s been a dedicated fosterer too. With her experience, Serena is always on hand to help with whatever comes her way.
Since becoming a community outreach officer, Serena has helped develop our senior pet clinics, assisting senior pets with preventative care and working with vets to develop management plans. She says: “I have thoroughly enjoyed supporting owners to achieve the care their pets need. Supporting owners during the final stages of their pets’ lives has been a very personal journey between myself and the owners. Many of them have said they could not have gone through the decision of euthanasia without support.”
Serena will never forget about the time she met Inka the dog and her owner who was struggling to find the root of the problem and the funds to fix it! Find out what happened next.
Nadine, community support officer
Nadine joined Woodgreen in March 2018 and started out in our Pet Support team talking to pet owner over the phone, guiding them through our relinquishment process. Having previously worked with the fire service in an emergency call room, Nadine has experience supporting people in their time of need. In December 2019 she became a community support officer. Her day-to-day role involves assessing financial applications for veterinary fees and neutering support.
In the last year, Nadine has helped pet owners get their poorly or injured pets to a vet for treatment. She’s seen multiple cases from pets needing tests for allergies, immediate treatment for pain relief, emergency pyometra, limb or tail amputations and euthanasia.
There have been many challenges too, especially the cost-of-living crisis and seeing the knock-on effect this is having on pet owners in the community. Nadine is looking forward to continuing to help pet owners in the new year and beyond to ensure they get the support they desperately need.
Charis, community support officer
Charis joined Woodgreen in 2019 after completing her MSc Degree in Clinical Animal Behaviour. She worked in our Smalls team as a small pet carer before joining the team on dogs. In June 2022, Charis moved on to join the Community Engagement team to become a community support officer. It’s safe to say all her previous experience from working in our on-site care teams has been extremely useful to her current role.
Charis loves being able to help pets and their people in the wider community and really champions those who have the courage to ask for help in such difficult times.
Olivia, community support officer
Olivia qualified as a veterinary nurse before joining Woodgreen in January 2014 working on Cat Section for five years as a rehomer. She then moved into the Pet Support team as a pet support officer, assisting with low level advice, guiding people through the relinquishment process, financial support and help with neutering. In October 2021, Olivia joined Woodgreen’s Outreach Team and became a community support officer. She continues to offer practical advice, financial aid and also admin support for the proactive work of the outreach officers, behaviour and training specialist and Education teams.
Olivia enjoys supporting pet owners remotely, she’s here to offer a non-judgemental ear and practical advice so they can make responsible choices about their pets. With her background in veterinary nursing, Olivia particularly thrives when she’s faced with a situation where pet owners need support with loss and grief. She has successfully completed the Blue Cross Pet Bereavement course to allow her to support these owners further.