paws4transitions

The paws4transitions™ Program

In November 2007 the CEO of a Leesburg, VA behavioral healthcare facility for pre-teens and adolescents with mental illness from 9 -1 7 years old, offered one of our volunteer Assistance Dog handlers and trainers, Elaine Johnson, a permanent full-time position as the Animal Assisted Therapist working with this at-risk population. Elaine and her Chocolate Labrador, Educational Assistance Dog, MOLLY, had been working in an adaptive camp for children with disabilities and during a swim safety session the CEO–who was also the father of one of the children–remarked on the positive effects MOLLY had brought to his daughter.

Elaine and MOLLY began The paws4transitions™ and have since added volunteers from paws4peopleTM and introduced her 12 week-old Golden Retriever, WILLSON, to the facility where he has been working since (and is now 18 months).

The paws4transitions™ came about as a name because the residents living in the facility are not commonly long term residents and therefore they are in transition before moving forward to their more permanent placement either to a group home, back to parents, or to foster parents.

The main goal of the program is to improve the lives of the residents at the facility. The program aims to provide an opportunity for these youngsters to receive the unconditional love they so often need via the emotional safety an animal can provide.

MOLLY was first introduced to the residents one Christmas day; she and Elaine visited all residents and performed tricks wearing Christmas outfits. The children who did not have visitors and who were lonely got to experience the love and companionship MOLLY showered on everyone. One resident in particular wrote about this visit in school after the holiday break saying it was the best thing that ever happened to him over the holidays.

The introduction of WILLSON provided opportunities to emphasize manners and appropriate behavior, the residents connected with him and saw that he and they were struggling with the same goals of self control, patience and impulse control. They see WILLSON still working on these things and the consistent way in which he has made improvements and keeps trying and how happy he is with everyone. He has taught many residents how to play and laugh with his outgoing, lovable and comedic personality, his main goal from the start was to work with a resident who was an acute self harmer. WILLSON assisted this person in her treatment and she successfully completed her treatment.

he whole mood of the facility has changed since the program began. The staff and residents see Elaine and the dogs walking around the facility and get chance to say hello and pet, “it makes my day brighter” one resident said, another said “I look forward to seeing the dog, it makes my day.” Everything is warmer and it makes residential treatment a less intimidating place to be. Residents choose this facility over others because of the animal involvement. Elaine also coordinates the Equine Therapy program with a local NARHA Therapeutic Riding Foundation.

The two dogs and Elaine work with residents individually to enhance treatment outcomes. There are also group sessions. Elaine works with the case therapists to assist in difficult reactive attachment disorder cases where the therapist has needed the presence of the animal to help them form more effective and trusting therapeutic relationships which we eventually we want to see transfer to parents and siblings.

Many of the residents have been abused physically, mentally and emotionally and have never had chance to be successful. The program provides positive experiential learning, and opportunity for success, which brings with it a sense of competence, improved self-esteem and self confidence.

The program also gives the residents chance to:

Learn responsibility
Work on Self Control
Improve concentration
Provide motivation to work on treatment goals
Improve self confidence and self esteem
Encourage teamwork and cooperation
Work on trust and building relationships
Improve social skills
Improve verbal skills
Decrease self harm
Decrease depression
Improve anger management

There have been many successes along the way but the most outstanding have been the following:

A Russian orphan suffering from Reactive Attachment Disorder who was unable to attach to her adopted parent did not want to participate in any therapy or education. This young lady was a big animal lover. Animal therapy was used to motivate her to participate in both by providing short frequent sessions if she followed directions and did her work. After a period this young lady participated in therapy, everyone saw her laugh and smile when with the dog and she was able to complete her therapy.

Since MOLLY was a canine Freestyle Dog the young lady was able to learn and practice in session a dance routine with MOLLY and performed it with MOLLY for her treatment team and in a talent show, something no one would have ever dreamed she would do. She wrote this poem about Molly the Chocolate Labrador Retriever:

MOLLY

When times were rough
And I was acting a fool
I met you Molly and boy
Were you cool?
Times were hard
But you were there
I started to give up, but then,
You made me care
The bad times passed
And we had fun
We learned some tricks
To play and run
I love you Molly
You’re such a charm
I trust you much
You never do harm
I know when I leave
You’ll be in my heart
I know Molly

Inside we’ll never part

A young man severely abused who needed a male mentor which Terry, our Executive Director, provided along with his dogs. This youngster loved dogs; he loved Terry’s three dogs and worked to earn outings with Terry, Elaine and MOLLY/ WILLSON and his therapist. Along the way this young man had a lot of difficulties but MOLLY never gave up on him and he always loved to cuddle her, in fact he always said she was like his mother she would lay for hours just letting him be with her and pet her. He loved the attention and unconditional love she gave him.

Throughout his longer-than-usual stay the Assistance Dogs, MOLLY, WILLSON, SOLOMON, CHAENEY, ADDIE and TRAVIS supported this young man during the search for a new foster family and the hurt he experienced on losing his own family. MOLLY and WILLSON visited with him as support in his interview for a new group home.

This young man had a heart of gold and when he discovered MOLLY was diagnosed with a Mast Cell Tumor he gave her a necklace that he had been gifted at the Christmas Holiday and put it around her neck as a good luck charm. MOLLY recovered and of all the residents in the facility this young man was special to her. When she heard his voice or saw him her tail would wag and she would want to interact and shower him with kisses.

The third a bright young lady with ADHD loved to watch WILLSON play. She had never learned to play as a child. She wanted WILLSON to be free to do his own thing, and not be leashed. This was while he was learning greeting manners.

She would sometimes entice WILLSON to jump up and was impulsive. She learned to be more disciplined with WILLSON accepting the necessity for safety at all times and showed concern for his safety. She spent hours petting and brushing “Mr. WILLSON” in fact that is where he got his nickname. She finally learned to control herself while greeting WILLSON and at the appropriate times and the success story is that she was discharged with the goal of being in the U.S. Air Force. She had recognized that she needed structure and discipline in her life and had not previously had this enforced in her home life. WILLSON helped to teach her self control, happiness, and discipline and helped to reduce the anxiety she was experiencing during her treatment. She visited recently and we are pleased to say she is top student at school and is doing well.

Our paws4people™ volunteer Debbie Fox and her dogs IZZY and CLEO have also become instrumental parts of The paws4transitions™.

The residents she visits weekly look forward to seeing them. The residents learn obedience skills, play games, run and have an active time chasing the dogs, learn animal related facts and the relevant associations in their lives. Debbie plays a big role in bringing the outside in. Her dogs are both Yellow Labrador Retrievers and greet everyone each week with energy and enthusiasm ready for play. Debbie is our Certified Reading Expert and has started providing individual reading sessions with the dogs to assist those children who are self conscious or don’t like reading with the goal of improving reading skills and self confidence in a positive non threatening manner. The dog pretends to read the book, puts her paw on it and the residents feel like she is listening to the story they are reading. They forget to feel self conscious while they are petting the dog and they become more used to reading to others.

Elaine is always looking for additions and improvements to the program, these have included outings to animal related events and most recently to a grooming salon where residents who earned the privilege were taken to bathe and groom WILLSON and CLEO. It is likely that this will become a regular outing due to the success, vocational experience and full participation and involvement of all who went.

The planning process has begun for this facility to house its own paws4people™ Assistance Dogs on site so that residents can take full advantage of all the opportunities for experiential learning and vocational education that this would bring.