CharityVoice.co.uk|Giving charities a voice

We contacted Kim Hamilton today to try and have our questions answered by someone higher up at the Blue Cross.

Hi

My name is Heather and myself and my partner David were recently foster carers for the Blue Cross. We are concerned about a massive problem we encountered. This is the full story so far, however it is being updated every day. Please look at the current comments on this post too. There is wide spread knowledge on the internet about this and the following is growing rapidly.

We are shocked and disgusted. Only a few days ago adoption was a viable option but now we aren’t good enough. We were homechecked as foster carers which is different to adoption in the fact that we are homechecked for any dog rather than a specific dog. We were willing to travel hundreds of miles, stay in a hotel at our own cost just so that we could bring her home and this was rejected. We feel that we are being penalised for making a well thought out decision and not being rash about this. We made extensive enquiries and all we needed was an extra day to get all of the information together.

Please show your support of this by leaving a reply to this post as we need all the help that we can get. Please also look at our “How you can help us” page to help us in our cause. We are not taking this refusal lying down and your help will count.

Here is the link for further reference:

http://www.charityvoice.co.uk/animal-charities/dog-fostering-scheme/blue-cross-dog-foster-scheme-disaster/

All we want is to be able to adopt Nala and bring her home. We are willing to travel for her, and do anything else necessary. We can offer her anything and everything she needs and we have shown that. We are growing increasingly concerned that Steve Goody has been lied to about us or our home etc and we find this concerning.

Please would you help us to adopt Nala? She doesn’t need the help that is being claimed. She needs work on her recall but we were told not to let her off lead so of course this is sub par. She has been transferred to the Bromsgrove Centre and is currently not available on the website I assume because of the transfer.

I personally have researched and set up two different training classes to take Nala to, found a big and secure place to give her off lead excercise, can afford her monetary costs and have got insurance ready to buy and all the other things she needs.

Please help us. We can give Nala the best possible home and as we have been her foster carer, you already know that the house is acceptable and we know her better than anyone.

We would be ever so grateful for the help.

Thankyou in advance

Heather and David

The reply

Dear Heather,
Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.

I’m sorry that your experience of The Blue Cross and our Pet Fostering service in particular has not been a positive one for you.  This is a very new scheme for us and as such, we accept that there are elements of the process that can be improved.  There has also clearly been a breakdown in communication along the way, for which I can only apologise.

I can understand how difficult it must be for you to be parted from Nala after the time you have spent together, but I can assure you that her welfare is our first priority.

As a dog lover, I’m sure you can appreciate how important it is for a dog’s future wellbeing that appropriate behaviour is established at an early age.  I understand that you were finding it difficult to cope with Nala’s challenging behaviour, which is why you agreed that she should be transferred to a Blue Cross adoption centre for intensive training with our animal behaviourists.

The Blue Cross has been caring for animals for over 100 years and all our centres offer very high standards of care.  I’m happy to report that Nala is settling in very well and she is now undergoing a period of behavioural assessment and one-to-one training by our experienced staff.

As soon as her behaviour is under control we will start the process of matching her to the most appropriate home with someone who can offer her the time, love and experience that she needs.  I would suggest that at stage we have a further conversation to determine whether this is something you and David will be able to provide, in accordance with our normal adoption procedures.  As I’m sure that you can understand that our main aim is for Nala to have a home where she will be happy for the rest of her life.

Again, I’d like to thank you for bringing this to my attention. As an organisation, we pride ourselves on providing the best service and as such, I appreciate hearing of your experience in order that we can improve the services we offer and achieve our shared goal of helping animals in need.  I can only apologise for any upset or distress the recent events may have caused you however please be assured that our intention is always to do the very best for the animals in our care.

Yours sincerely,
Kim Hamilton

We replied with the following

Hello, thank you for your reply. Our experiance of the blue cross had been a good one, we had only had problems when it came to the fostering service.

I agree, there does seem to have been a breakdown in communication, but we still feel that a lot has been said behind our back.

We are not doing this because we are missing her, we are doing this because we were given 10 minutes in a car park to decide if we wanted to adopt. Only when we begged were we given till the next morning. We managed to get one working day in which we tried our best to get all the details and answers we needed to make sure we could adopt her. One day simply was not enough. After she was taken away we continued looking into it and at 7pm that night we had all the details we needed to be completely sure we could offer everything she needed. We have everything set up that we need including training sessions.

Our only problem in all of this is that we feel we are being penalised for making a thoroughly thought out decision and not jumping to a decision. We were offered adoption and then it was flatly refused later. It was less than 12 hours since she had been picked up when we had all of the information.

we would like to compromise with you. We’d like to adopt Nala and to continue working with yourselves and her. We would go to training classes twice a week, take care of Nala and offer her a happy home. On top of this we will visit one of the adoption centres so that we can continue with training with yourselves as well. The only thing we couldn’t cope with was handling her small behavioural issues when we had no support. Now that we have set this up ourselves, everything will be fine.

We would be grateful if you would agree to the above offer with regards to adopting Nala as we know now that we have thoroughly researched it that it is more than a viable option and we want to get started with Nalas training sessions as soon as possible.

Hope to hear from you soon
Heather and David

We spoke to Kim Hamilton by telephone on 24/10/2008 and during that conversation, Kim has confirmed that there was a “breakdown in communication” but has not confirmed that there will be a thorough investigation. She has also agreed that we can apply to adopt Nala in the same capacity as any other member of the public and will speak to me more about that when “Nala has been assessed and her training has been completed”. We don’t know yet when this will be. We did highlight to Kim that Nala never had any serious behavioural issues and that the lies perpetuated about us were flatly untrue. Whether this has been taken on board or not, we do not know.

Update: 28/10/08. Kim Hamilton has confirmed in an email to us that she is investigating the issues we have had and is going to ensure that this does not happen in the future. This is a big step and I’m sure that Kim or Laura Dobson will be posting a statement on the outcomes of that to let all of us know whats been decided.

We replied to this email with:

Hi Kim

Thanks for your reply, we really appreciate the effort you are putting into this and we are grateful for all the help you are giving us.

I realise that this will sound a little bit paranoid, but will Mandy Jones be taking instruction from Steve Goody on this? If so, I am deeply concerned that we will be refused because of all the lies told about us and everything else and this is worrying because all we want to do is to adopt Nala and we wish we had had all of the information before we had to give her over to yourselves. We got all of the information a few hours too late. Can you confirm to me that we won’t just be refused because of the issues with Denise and Steve and that we will be fairly assessed? I hate to come across strongly but as I’m sure you can understand Nala is important to us and we can offer her everything she needs, we know that.

The questions we submitted to Laura were questions that the people leaving comments on the site had and we have no answers. I don’t want it to seem all bad towards the Blue Cross as it is an important charity, with a lot of good, honest and hardworking people in it doing their best for animals in need and I feel that the answers to the questions would be a benefit to us so we can post them and even the balance. The investigation that is being conducted is great and it has been posted on the website so that people can see you are doing something about it.

Thanks again for all of your time and we look forward to hearing from you next week to let us know we can start the adoption process.

Thanks again for all your hard work

Heather and David

Dear Heather,

As Nala is now at Bromsgrove, it will be the staff and centre manager there who will conduct the assessment and matching of all potential adopters to Nala.  I have asked  that Mandy  be present if you decide to apply for adoption in order to give support to the staff at Bromsgrove and to give you some assurance that the process is being managed at the highest levels.  As such,  I can assure you that whilst Mandy and indeed all staff within the Companion Animal Welfare Department report to Steve, they will act professionally as always and the assessment will be carried out with only the best interests of Nala at heart.  I can confirm therefore that you will be assessed fairly and objectively however as I have stressed before, there is no guarantee that you and David will be able to adopt Nala as our only objective is to find the best possible home for  her in order to secure her happiness for the rest of her life.

Kind regards,

Ki m