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Gillis Stories - Pets For Life

Animal-assisted therapy and activity have become important Wednesday morning events for students of Mrs. Newell and Mrs. Bondsingram at Gillis.

Interaction with the volunteer and pet teams is designed to educate the children about dogs and also to meet whatever needs individual children have that day. The boys have learned the proper way to approach dogs. They’ve learned to be kind and gentle when they hold CHARLIE on their laps or get down on the floor to love GRACIE. They’ve learned how to groom ELLA and CHARLIE. They’ve learned how to help ECHO do her tricks. The kids love to “style” ONYX’s fancy “top-knot,” and they look forward to helping sweet LOLA learn some tricks. Recently, the boys helped SADIE with her obedience skills by practicing commands with her. It’s interesting to note that helping SADIE helped the boys, too. It gave them a sense of control and also of accomplishment and success. One child who has difficulty speaking was motivated to speak loudly and clearly enough for SADIE to hear and understand and obey his commands. A very exciting moment!

A culminating event took place on January 16th. SADIE’s 2-year certification with PFL expired and it was time for her to take the Temperament Test again. The Temperament Test was done at Gillis with children from the 2 classrooms observing and participating. The kids did a great job acting as distractions during the test, and felt a sense of “ownership” in SADIE’s success with the test.

Mrs. Newell’s class then made use of some dog-related information as she worked with her class on graphs. The boys made bar graphs showing the ages of the dogs who visit them. Then they did line graphs showing the scores SADIE received on the different parts of the test. In addition, students have done research about dog breeds and they do extra practice on their reading so they can read to the dogs.

So, what good does animal-assisted therapy and activity do? It enhances self-worth, it improves social interaction, it teaches responsibility, it motivates students to do extra study, and it allows children to feel affection from a totally non-judgmental being. There’s a lot of truth in Mark Twain’s comment that “The outside of a dog is good for the inside of a boy.” We see the evidence of that every Wednesday morning.

Stories

The PACT (Parents and Children Together) program staff received a request to provide in-home therapy for John, a 10-year-old with behavioral problems. He would get angry and out of control and would not listen to his parents. He was having problems at school. The previous school year he had been suspended for fighting with peers, not listening to his teachers, and causing trouble on the school bus.

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Gillis News

As part of their community service hours at Rockhurst High School, two young men volunteered at Gillis, working with the residential students. One day they looked around and realized that the common areas were not what they, as “typical” teenagers, would like to look at every day. So, they undertook a cottage renovation project. READ MORE

Gillis is part of Cornerstones of Care, a partnership of agencies providing therapeutic treatment services for children and families.