Q&A
ACC's surrender prevention program
0:58:53
·
171 sec
Council Member Schulman inquires about ACC's program to help people keep their animals. Risa Weinstock explains the surrender prevention counseling process and its success.
- The program is part of ACC's admissions process, designed to address issues that lead to surrenders.
- Counselors work with pet owners to identify and solve problems, offering resources like food pantries or behavioral advice.
- The new Queens facility has private spaces for these sensitive conversations.
- In the past year, ACC has helped over 1,000 pets stay with their families.
- Approximately 20% of those who come in intending to surrender their pets end up keeping them after counseling.
Lynn C. Schulman
0:58:53
One of the things that I was impressed with when I went to when I visited the Queen Centre was that you have a program to try and get people to keep their animals because if they especially if they can't afford them or there are issues.
0:59:05
Can you talk about a little bit about what you do in that regard?
Risa Weinstock
0:59:10
Yes.
0:59:10
That's all under the umbrella of our admissions program.
0:59:14
It's something that we're really proud of and something for which the queen's care center was designed for.
0:59:20
So if you notice when you walk in, you have there are two doors.
0:59:24
You can go to the left where admissions are directed or to the right where adoptions are directed.
0:59:31
In the admissions program, it's a really sensitive and painful process for individuals who show up and say, you're my last resort.
0:59:41
I don't know what to do.
0:59:42
We have private rooms set up so that our admissions counselors can do surrender prevention counseling, which we feel is a very, very important component to what we're seeing in animal welfare right now.
0:59:55
And the counseling can be just starting with what is the issue.
1:00:00
And if it's a simple issue that can be corrected, is it food?
1:00:05
We have a food pantry.
1:00:07
They're not using the litter box.
1:00:08
We can we can help you.
1:00:10
We try to provide as many resources as we can to help that family keep their pet.
1:00:15
There's a lot of there's a lot of heartbreak on that side of animal welfare and on that side of the building, and that's why it was created with all those private spaces.
1:00:25
And we feel with the the public clinic that we're the the clinic as part of the shelter, that is going to be the next step and the arm of our surrender prevention program.
1:00:38
If you if your dog needs a dental, we can do it for you.
Lynn C. Schulman
1:00:44
About what percentage of people that come in that need to say they want to surrender their pets go away with keeping them.
1:00:55
I mean, approximately, I'm not asking for an exact.
Risa Weinstock
1:00:58
Well, in the past, in this year, we've been able to keep over a 1000 pets with their families.
1:01:09
That's amazing.
Lynn C. Schulman
1:01:13
So out of out of how many that come in, like
Risa Weinstock
1:01:17
well, you know, we haven't to me, like, how
Lynn C. Schulman
1:01:19
many No.
1:01:20
Like, for example, the 60%, 70%, 65% of those who come in that want to surrender their animals, you're able to keep them together with their owners.
Risa Weinstock
1:01:31
I can get data for you, but I'm, you know, consulting with my
Lynn C. Schulman
1:01:35
because I'll be I mean, it seems like it's a successful program.
1:01:37
I just want we just want the numbers.
Risa Weinstock
1:01:39
We think off hand at that 20%, but I can, you know, get you more specific data.