Paws & Pause - Changing lives with dog daycare

Dog daycare done differently!

Paws & Pause supports and trains people in recovery from addiction and mental illness on their journey to build new skills, confidence and feel employable. All of the money raised in this crowdfunding campaign will go towards empowering and supporting  more people in recovery on their journey back towards employment and education like current trainee Sinclair!

Where did we come from?

Hi! We're Jodie & Grace. We started Paws & Pause with a vision to combine community care with dog care, and inspired by our time working at St-Mungo's homelessness charity - where we had seen first hand how the simple presence of an animal could increase a person's ability to connect, learn and feel confident. In 2019, we opened our first daycare in Brixton. 5 years down the line, a second Peckham site and 47 trainee placements later, we need help to scale our trainee programme as it grows alongside our daycare.

What does Paws & Pause do?

Confidence, workplace skills and experience are some of the key barriers that people in recovery from addiction and mental ill-health face on their journey back into employment. Paws & Pause was started in 2019 to help combat that. We create an environment where animals are the tool for learning, increase engagement in therapeutic services, act as a tool for long term recovery and also enable access to employment and further education.

"This opportunity helped me regain the sense of structure in my life, as well as a sense of responsibility and connection, which came from working in a team and being trusted with day care tasks." - Ross

Paws & Pause advocates that animals, and in particular dogs, are a catalyst to engaging people living with mental health difficulties and substance use challenges as part of their recovery journey. We believe that the connection between dogs and humans is powerful and can act as a great motivator for engagement, change and self reflection, enabling access to employment and further education for those too often socially excluded.

"I've loved getting to know the different dogs and helping them build confidence I really enjoyed the team, albeit small, and that the effort was put into doing ‘team’ activities like the laughing yoga despite the pandemic!"- Lina

What are we crowdfunding for?

We have a huge waiting list for people wanting to join the programme and on average, a 6 month trainee placement costs us £1200 -  This cost is broken down into the following categories:

What do people learn on the Paws & Pause employability programme?

Our programme combines hands on experience in our doggy day care with mentoring and workshops to understand how to get back to work. We develop skills such as personal training budget and practice the practicality of being in a workplace – such as time keeping and organisation.

Paws & Pause provides a place for trainees to build on HOW to build and maintain employability within our daycare setting, alongside the dogs and team.

This is supported by 1-1 mentoring, employability and personal development workshops, team activities and the completion of our Workbook to compliment each placement.

What the experts say

“The great thing about animals is they don’t have a preconceived notion of people.” - Dr. Henry Feldman ( Division of General Internal Medicine at Harvard-affiliated Medical Centre). “They provide unconditional love, which encourages interaction and helps people feel more confident."

"By having an animal, an individual may feel a greater responsibility, meaning that they may be less likely to engage in addictive behaviours and take greater pride in their sobriety, making them feel better in general about their behaviours, but also giving them something else to work toward i.e., treating their animal well and caring for it as much as it is caring for them." -Rehab4addiction

Click here to read our full social impact report!

Prize Draw Terms and Conditions:

• To enter the draw select the "A4 Poster & Caterpillar Kit Giveaway Entry"
• For free postal entry contact [email protected] 
• Entries will close on the 30th June
• The winner will receive 2 months of free dog daycare based on their current rolling daycare attendance
• The winner will be selected at random and contacted by 30/08/2024
• Participants must be 18 or over

THANK YOU