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Are you considering a career with animals? Animal Courses Direct offers provide a selection of Courses and Qualifications. Sometimes it is difficult for people to choose the right training for their requirements, especially if it is a career change. This is where Lisa Park Careers and Student Support Advisor comes into her role. Lisa you have recently joined Animal Courses Direct as Careers and Student Support Advisor. What inspired you to become part of their team? Before joining Animal Courses Direct, I was managing a Creative Learning Centre for a Charity supporting adults with learning disabilities where we offered many different topics, including Animal and Rural Skills and Ecology and Bush Craft. Prior to this, I managed the Animal Care Unit for a Land Based Further Education College, which accommodated a wide range of animals, where I taught practical animal care skills to a range of students from entry level upwards. I was also an assessor and internal verifier of the work-based animal courses. The role of Careers Adviser and Student Support Officer was a perfect fit for me! It combines my love of working with individuals to achieve their goals and my passion for animals and their welfare. I was very impressed by the ethos of Animal Courses Direct, and their dedication to providing meaningful and relevant animal courses for enhancing an individual’s career and employment prospects in a variety of animal related roles. Animal Courses Direct are also the only training provider offering Ofqual regulated qualifications, which is vital for those looking to work in roles that fall under the Animal Activity Licensing regulations or have specific careers paths in mind such as Zoo keeping, Veterinary Nursing or Hydrotherapy. I was also impressed with the opportunity for people to enter a course at Level 2 and potentially progress to Level 6 (Degree equivalent).
We asked Lisa to tell us more about Animal Courses Direct and her interesting work Animal Jobs Direct is now referred to as Animal Courses Direct. We understand this is quite a recent change? Why the new name? Yes, that’s correct. Animal Jobs Direct was established in 2005 and has steadily grown in the past 14 years. We run a Job Board website (www.animaljobsdirect.com) with the latest jobs working with animals, and we now have all of our training courses on the newly launched (www.animalcoursesdirect.co.uk). We thought that by having two separate websites, it would make it easier for students to find exactly what they are looking for. 12
29 SEPTEMBER – 29 OCTOBER 2019 RESCUE AND ANIMAL CARE
How would you describe a typical day? A typical day for me starts with working through the student support emails that have come in overnight. I often need to liaise with the tutoring staff as they are all experts in their field and bring a wealth of knowledge and varied experiences to the courses.
