Our Programs

Animal Assisted Therapy
and
Animal Assisted Activity

Valerie Appel, a retired Emergency Department nurse saw a need in the community of Steamboat Springs, Colorado for animal assisted therapy services.  After a year of research and working closely with the local hospital the Yampa Valley Medical Center, Heeling Friends started visiting with three teams. It has become a community success story. As of 2018 the Yampa Valley Medical Center has merged with UCHealth.

Since 1998 more than 458 teams have regularly visited the hospital, extended care and rehabilitation centers, as well as special treatment facilities, the cancer center, and retirement homes. 
Any stay at a medical facility can be daunting.  It is lonely and the uncertain circumstances of the stay can be extremely difficult emotionally.

To those who have pets in their lives, Heeling Friends therapy dogs provide comfort with their cold noses and wagging tails to lower blood pressure, decrease heart rate, slow breathing and provide overall significant measurable relaxation.

Heeling Friends aim is to help comfort patients, friends and relatives of patients, and even hospital staff, make it through the most difficult of days.

The goal of each team’s visit is to bring comfort and smiles to all of those who they meet.
Reading matters to your students.
It matters to their academic success, and in turn, to their future success as adults.
Reading matters to you as an educator, to your district, and to the health of your community.
It also matters to us.
In the field of therapy animal work, Heeling Friends and Pet Partners is uniquely committed to education and preparedness. Our therapy animal teams are passionate about supporting literacy, and a therapy animal team provides an engaging, non-judgmental, creative opportunity for all students to get excited about building their skills.

We will support students, and you, by providing the best therapy animal teams for reading support,
through Pet Partners Read With Me. 

Why therapy animals?

A therapy animal is an incentive, a motivational tool, and a non-judgmental listener…all in one. Breathe new life into your lesson plans, your classroom activities, or your library’s reading program with the engaging presence of a highly qualified volunteer and their animal. Whether you have just a few students needing extra help, or a whole classroom of students eager to practice their skills, a therapy animal team can provide just the ticket to get them in a positive mindset and ready to learn. And through Read With Me, you can be assured that your students are working with the most highly credentialed volunteers in the field. Learn more about the Pet Partners difference.


What is Read With Me?

Read With Me is a special initiative of the Pet Partners Therapy Animal Program in affiliation with Heeling Friends. After our volunteer therapy animal teams complete their required coursework, health screening, and behavioral assessment, they have the opportunity to opt in to Read With Me.

Read With Me teams are eligible for special continuing education opportunities, including webinars hosted by leading figures in educational research (such as Dr. Deborah Linder of Tufts University, and Dr. Nancy Gee of State University of New York). Teams also receive the Read With Me manual, a rich curriculum designed in alignment with the pioneering guide in the field: the Pet Partners Handler Guide.


What is covered in the Read With Me manual?

As a companion to our Handler Guide, the Read With Me manual builds on Pet Partners’ core values, policies, and procedures. Handlers learn how to apply their proactive handling and constructive communication skills in a setting with children. The manual provides volunteers with activities to practice at home, tools for choosing the right volunteer opportunity for their animals, and strategies to keep students of all ages safe and engaged in the therapy animal visit. Chapters include Checking for a Good Fit, Best Practices for Read With Me Visits, and Promoting Safety and Limiting Risk. Your school administrators or fellow teaching faculty can be confident that teams will be a positive addition to your school’s community, as well as an enormous benefit to your students!

Program Partners

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