Welcoming New UKWT Drivers...

I want to share what our procedures are, when welcoming new UKWT Drivers onto our Database (and getting them onto the road, transporting wildlife to emergency care). 

Sometimes these steps happen in a different order to those listed below (the Driver may have already been so proactive as to have purchased the necessary carriers/disinfectants by the time we’re chatting on the phone) but this breakdown at least gives you an idea of what happens at UKWT, behind the scenes, as we grow our transport network…

1. WELCOMING THEM: I send the Driver a text saying…   “Hi, my name’s Alana - I run UK Wildlife Transporters.  Thanks very much for signing up as a Driver.  Are you free over the next few days to chat about getting you set up with carriers and disinfectant and onto Drivers Lists for local Rescues/Vet Practices please? X”

2. GETTING THEM READY TO PROVIDE TRANSPORT SUPPORT TO THEIR LOCAL AREA: We chat on the phone about their specific area and filling in the transport gap around their local Vet Practices & Rescues.  (We chat about which Rescues and Practices they can drive for and how quickly I am also looking to grow the number of teams they’ll eventually be on, to locally support even more Rescues/Practices).

3. MAKING SURE THAT OUR NEW DRIVER HAS THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT: I go over the logistics of the Wildlife Volunteer Driver role & answer any questions AND we chat about whether the Driver would like to purchase their own carriers/disinfectant outright or whether they’d like us to provide them and they buy them off us over 3 months (helping them to eventually own the necessary equipment but spreading the cost).

4. POPPING THEM ONTO DRIVER TEAMS: Finally, they are added to our UKWT Drivers WhatsApp Community Group and to the WhatsApp groups for the Drivers teams they’re allocated to, so that they’re ready to start accepting calls for transport support.

5. GROWING UKWT & HAVING THE BIGGEST IMPACT THAT WE CAN, OVER TIME: As new Wildlife Rescues/Vet Practices are added to the map of places that we provide wildlife transport support to, I cross reference our 'map of places to support' with our 'Drivers Database map' and then I pop messages into our UKWT Drivers WhatsApp Community Group, letting our Database know about new places to support. (On a practical level, what this means is that, on my computer screen, I compare my map of UKWT Drivers to my map showing where the new Rescues/Practices are and contact Drivers whom I can see are nearby, to ask if they want to allocate themselves to the new Driver Teams.  [See some examples of messages that I have sent, below]. Slowly but surely, in each area, one Driver = many wild lives getting to emergency care.