Nonprofit Organization Looks Forward to Implementing Progressive Services for our Community
Kansas City, MO – After a transition period with the City of Kansas City, MO, KC Pet Project will officially assume the contract for animal control services on December 1 at 7:00am. Residents of Kansas City will still be able to call 311 to report any animal control related issues on weekdays between 7am-7pm. Residents can call KC Pet Project’s main line at 816-683-1383 on weekends and for after-hours emergency calls.
For the past three months, KC Pet Project has been in a transition period with the City of Kansas City, MO to ensure that there was no lapse in services. KC Pet Project spent this transition time hiring their new Chief of Animal Services, managers, officers, and dispatch specialists. KC Pet Project and the City of Kansas City, MO held weekly meetings to discuss the details of the transition. KC Pet Project also worked with a group of national and local experts in the field, including members of the Municipal and Shelter Support team at Best Friends Animal Society, who are experts in the animal control field, and with members of the National Animal Care and Control Association.
This new department for the organization is led by April Moore, Chief of Animal Services for KC Pet Project. April comes to Kansas City from Texas, where she served as the Animal Services Supervisor in Austin, which is the largest no-kill community in the United States, for more than twelve years. Austin, Texas receives more than 31,000 calls for service annually, and her team covered a 900 square mile jurisdiction for more than 1.2 million residents.
“Our team of Animal Services Officers demonstrate a strong commitment to public service, the enhancement of animal welfare, and building a safe, humane community through engagement-focused, community-centered animal protection programming,” said April Moore, Chief of Animal Services. “Our team is excited to empower and connect with our community to strengthen relationships and build trust.”
KC Pet Project selected and trained 16 new Animal Services Officers from across the Kansas City metro to build this new division for KC Pet Project. These dedicated officers have undergone more than 50 hours of formal classroom education, including animal control field services training, animal ordinances, legal and courtroom training, ethics and investigations, as well as conflict resolution and de-escalation training at the Kansas City, MO Police Academy. They have also undergone more than 40 hours of hands on training within KC Pet Project departments on safe animal handling, pet support resources, customer service training, zoonotic diseases, and more. Additionally, officers have spent the last two weeks co-responding with current city animal health and public safety staff. They have also hired a team of dispatch specialists to handle all of the calls for service. The team will work at the KC Campus for Animal Care.
“We have worked on this for more than two years and have assembled a team of diverse, community-minded officers that are fully prepared to create positive change through information, access to resources, enforcement of animal cruelty and neglect laws, and protecting public health and safety while building a new foundation of trust and meaningful change through progressive field services,” said Teresa Johnson, President/CEO of KC Pet Project.
KC Pet Project is still hiring for a number of positions including Animal Services Officers, Bilingual Animal Services Officers, and Dispatch Specialists. All of their available positions can be viewed at www.kcpetproject.org/careers.
For more information on this new service at KC Pet Project, go to www.kcpetproject.org/animalservices.