By Jennifer Wilder | Director of Development and Communications
In July 2008, Warrior Canine Connection Executive Director and Founder Rick Yount piloted the first Therapeutic Service Dog Training Program for Veterans at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center’s inpatient PTSD program. The testimonies from the Veterans in Rick’s program inspired lawmakers so powerfully to the degree that they asked Yount and Veterans Affairs to help draft the original language for what would become the PAWS for Veterans Therapy Act. After many challenges and 13-years later, last August, the President signed the PAWS for Veterans Therapy Act into law.
Under the new law, the Department of Veterans Affairs will launch a five-year pilot program that provides service dog training to benefit Veterans diagnosed with PTSD. In addition to expanding Yount’s therapeutic service dog training model to five VA hospitals around the country, it is the first law that authorizes the VA to provide support for Veterans who utilize service dogs to help them mitigate their psychological injuries.
“Thank you to the leadership at the Palo Alto VA, especially Recreation Therapy Services for its forward-thinking and willingness to explore a new way of caring for hospitalized Veterans,” said Rick Yount, executive director and founder, Warrior Canine Connection. “They put their faith in me, allowing me to bring four Golden Retrievers on a daily basis into a very intense clinical setting at their Menlo Park Trauma Recovery Program. This legislation has been a long time coming, and it validates the Mission Based Trauma Recovery training model that Warrior Canine Connection created to help our Warriors in recovery. Furthermore, it underscores the importance and power of the human-animal bond and will provide significant support and resources for Veterans who can benefit from their relationship with man’s best friend.”
This legislation took effect on January 1, 2022. WCC was asked by VA leadership to collaborate on the implementation, and is the nonprofit partner currently providing services at two of the five pilot sites.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
