Standard Operating Procedures are designed to be shared with members and new member applicants in the interests of transparency
Key definitions:
| Site / Centre: | A single location housing animals, or a group of locations housing animals but under common management. These may or may not be owned by the rescue. |
| Foster Carer: | Typically a domestic home providing temporary care for an animal, or small number of animals. The animals may be housed in the home, or in purpose built facilities on private property. If a foster home is under the management of a specific site / centre of an organisation, it is not always essential to be separately assessed, but the process for selection and management of foster homes will be assessed. |
| SAWC: | ADCH’s Standards and Animal Welfare Committee, which has delegated authority from the Trustees to make decisions on Membership. |
Procedure:
Further guidance can be obtained from ADCH staff ([email protected])
External assessments (new and existing members)
1. For organisations with multiple sites (four or more), external assessment will consist of two phases:
- Phase 1 – a visit to the organisation’s Head Office to review their internal quality assurance processes. This will take place before
- Phase 2 – site visits are undertaken
Phase 1
2. The visit to the Head Office will comprise a review of the following areas:
- SOPs and other similar frameworks and policies
- Quality assurance and monitoring systems in place
- Details of training provided to staff and volunteers in the implementation of policies and procedures.
3. Sites should be categorised (e.g. commercial boarding, adoption centres, foster homes etc) to determine how many of each type need to be visited (see below).
4. In the case of any licensed boarding premises, compliance with relevant statutory standards and licensing should be evidenced by the applicant / member organisation.
Phase 2
5. Visits to sites may be carried out by different assessors. When carrying out assessments, Assessors are acting for and representing the views of ADCH, and not their employer (if applicable). Applicants and assessors will be made aware of ADCH’s risk assessment for carrying out onsite risk assessments available here.
6. The requirements for submitting assessment forms is the same as set out in SOP 1 (new members), SOP 2 (self-assessment) and SOP 3 (external assessment of existing member), depending on the assessment type.
7. The number of site visits to be undertaken is as follows, unless agreed otherwise by SAWC:
Total sites | Site visits |
< 4 | All sites to be assessed, and no visit to head office required |
4-10 | Visit to head office, followed by visits to 3 sites |
11 – 50 | Visit to head office, followed by 3 sites or 10% of the total number of sites, whichever is the greater |
>51 | Visit to head office followed by a number of visits agreed after the visit to head office |
8. For organisations with multiple sites, different sites should be selected each time.
9. For organisations with a variety of types of sites (e.g. owned; commercial boarding etc) all types should be represented in the visits.
Self-assessments (see also SOP 2)
10. The number of self-assessments to be undertaken is as follows:
Total sites | Site visits |
< 4 | All sites to be assessed |
4-10 | Visit to head office, followed by visits to 3 sites |
11 – 50 | Visit to head office, followed by 3 sites or 10% of the total number of sites, whichever is the greater |
>51 | Visit to head office followed by a number of visits agreed after the visit to head office |
11. For organisations with multiple sites, different sites should be selected each time.