How It Works
The Healing Species leads youth through steps to success :
We build a bridge between students and their hearts with the help of rescued animals. The participation of the rescued dogs helps us reach all children, including high-risk youth. The dogs help children open up to the message that even the most wounded among us has something important to give and deserves to be safe.
Ideas and Practices our Students Discover:
- You Can Be Quiet and Gentle in the Classroom and Elsewhere and Still Have Power
- You Are Important
- Somebody Loves You
- Importance of Finding a Safe Place
- Things That People Do That Are Never OK
- How to Tell a Trusted Adult if You Need Help
- How to Keep Your Heart from Harm
- How to Get Your Broken Heart Back
- How Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Take Your Dreams Away and Harm Others Too
Now that we've created a safe environment for students, they are open to learning how to "rise above" their circumstances.
"How-To" Skills our Students Learn:
- Grieve Your Hurts, and Even Forgive
- Overcome Your Past by Making Positive Choices
- Know Your Triggers
- Understand Tolerance
- Heal by Showing Empathy to All Living Beings
- Earn Your Reputation
- Develop Your Personal Power
- Find Your “Natural Highs”
- Respect for the Feelings of Others, Especially the Voiceless
Finally, we provide the inspired students the skills necessary to intercept the cycle of crime by helping others who need them. They learn that they, too, must “give back”.
 Messages our Students Absorb:
- Be Aware of the World Around You
- Perform a Small Service Every Day
- Envision Your Dream Future
- Reach Dreams by Practicing Responsibility
- Be a Good Citizen of the World
- Set a Positive Example to Others
- Never Stop Believing in Possibilities
- Be a Good Steward – Starting with Your Own Name & Heart, then the Earth and Others
- No Matter Your Beginning, You Get to Write Your Own Story’s Ending
- Compassion for Others Makes the World Better For Yourself and Everyone
Each 11 to 13-week session ends with a student-led community service project.
- Rescued dogs accompany trained instructors into the classroom!
- Those who really bring the Healing Species lessons to life are the rescued dogs who act as "helpers and teachers" in every lesson.
- The dog, whose story of abuse and neglect, is a living example of overcoming one's past, and returning nonviolent responses. This empowers students to find hope and courage for their own lives.
- The dogs provide an incredibly strong "visual aid" to the Healing Species lessons, thus making it possible for even struggling students to remember lessons almost verbatim. Everybody can learn when the lesson is a story!
- What better way to reach "shut-down" children than through the wagging tail and unconditional love of dogs nobody else wanted? The children learn first hand that even the most vulnerable and most wounded among us is important and does have something important to give.
- With the visiting dog, students practice giving and receiving love and empathy - actions based on the feelings of others.
- Healing Species lessons lead to results! Studies show youth behavior and academics improve qualitatively and quantitatively!
 The very first lesson students learn: KEEP YOUR HEART!
- Tell a trusted adult if someone is hurting you, and keep telling until you get the help you need
- Grieve; cry; forgive
- Put your heart back together by giving love immediately to someone
“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”
Proverbs 4:23
|