Therapy Animals of San Antonio Inc.

To bring people and animals together for healing, education and to improve the lives of those in the community through promotion of the local benefits of the human-animal bond.

Our overall vision is to provide the physical, social/emotional, educational and psychological benef

Goal One: To support current registered therapy teams and to continue to recruit and register additional teams to meet the substantive needs and requests from the communities we serve.

Goal Two: To work closely with community agencies to support human animal interactions in ways that are safe for all involved as we continue to deal with the fluctuating impact of Covid on volunteer services.

Goal Three: To continue to evolve our newest program offering crisis animal response across all of Texas providing specially trained registered canine therapy teams to communities who have experienced tragedy.

We strive to consistently support board and member development related to human animal interactions, programs, and research. Our organization is an invited member of the International Association of Human-Animal Interactions Organizations and as such their resources are available to all of our members free of charge. Additionally they hold annual international meetings. Fall 2021 it was held electronically so our members were able to attend. Our Education Chair provided a synopsis of relevant information to members. February - June 2021, 18 of our members were reimbursed for gaining certificates in crisis response from FEMA, animal and human CPR and first aid and then attended a 12 hour course in working with persons in crisis taught by 3 experienced PhD's in the field. In fall 2019 we supported the attendance of several members to the National Pet Partner's Conference. All new members are oriented to HAI and to the organization and have access to training materials, bylaws, etc.

Our organization has been contacted several times in the past few years to send teams to support persons experiencing disasters or crises. We have responded to a large senior citizens high rise apartment fire, the survivors of the shooting at the church at Sutherland Springs, and some natural disaster situations. During those situations it became clear that our responses to disaster situations needed to be organized, deliberately operationalized and should include only experienced, additionally trained therapy teams. The Board made the decision to build and fund a animal assisted crisis response program (CARE) based on the national standards for such programs. A steering committee was formed in late 2019 consisting of members with extensive trauma and crisis response experience (advanced practice nurse with trauma experience and certification, a PhD in counseling and a psychologist both with crisis experience, a military flight medic with ER experience over 35 years, and a business executive). A curriculum addressing the national standards, policies and procedures for participation, deployment, debriefing, etc. were developed. A budget was set and equipment supporting branding, marketing, training and deployment across Texas were secured. Interested experienced teams were recruited. In spring 2021 19 members received FEMA certification, human and animal CPR and first aid certifications. These member attended a 9 hour class June 2021 taught by content experts covering psychological first aid, program protocols, policies and procedures, deployment call out, leadership, and self care. Additionally field time for canine training and desensitization was defined (comfort around ambulances, fire trucks, chaotic groups, navigating debris, difficult environments, use of foot protection, etc.). Meetings with local emergency response leaders occurred and teams were ready to deploy July 2021. First (successful) deployment was the tragedy at the Astrodome Fall 2021.