Zookeepers want to enhance their skills in an affordable way that is flexible and relevant to their individual requirements.  Continual professional development (CPD) in its definition is the way professionals improve their own practice, taking in new knowledge, skills and practical experience.

At the request of our members, ABWAK have facilitated a huge varying range of workshops for keepers and students or volunteers aiming to join the profession.  We now sit in the role of being one of the leading workshop providers for zookeepers in the UK.

The growing success of the workshops is largely due to the following three points:

• The knowledge and skills of the tutors who freely shared their expertise with their peers, many being active keepers in industry themselves.
• The generosity and support from the hosting collections that have embraced the ideals of ABWAK and allow us to charge as little as possible for workshops.
• The feedback from the people who attended the workshops has been truly amazing and is proof positive of the value of the training workshops.

By reading this ABWAK hopes to inspire you to attend one of the upcoming workshops which are listed below, or if you feel you would like to host or deliver a topic please contact us. All host collections and trainers will have direct support from a member of council to assist the process of planning and creation. See our Workshop Toolkit for full details.

In the first instance please contact us on training@abwak.org

ABWAK endeavour to keep our workshops affordable for all, and we also have travel grants available to our members to help fund expenses to attend.  Any profits from workshops go into our general fund that provides resources for our members; including these grants.  We may also need to cover workshop costs such as refreshments and materials, and our latest initiative is to donate 25% of any surplus profit from each event to the host institution’s choice of conservation charity.

We have been very fortunate in finding hosts who offer their venues, time and expertise for little or no cost, and we feel that this would be a suitable way of thanking them for their generosity. 

ABWAK Council is run by volunteer zoo professionals, who receive no monetary benefits for the time and energy they devote to the running of the organisation.