Veterans Moving Forward, Inc.

Priorities:
The highest priority of VMF is to fulfill its mission of providing (1) qualified therapy/service dogs to veterans and (2) associated canine therapy services for health care delivery to veterans with an increasing number each year.

Program Goals:
Acquire and train puppies to become therapy/service dogs that meet the specific needs of their veteran.
Place therapy/service dogs with veterans through a comprehensive matching process which ensures a high success rate.
Provide continued training and guidance to veterans following service dog placement.
Provide canine comfort/therapy services to veterans and active duty service members alongside their healthcare provider and at veteran-centric organizations and events.

Supporting Actions:
1. Actively train therapy/service dogs to fulfill our missions utilizing our full-time, certified, Director of Training and Programs.
2. Actively promote VMF service dogs to the veteran population and identify those in need of VMF highly trained service dogs.
3. Create and implement a strategy to reach out to clinicians and veteran-centric organizations to increase outreach to potential veteran applicants and reach of canine comfort/therapy services.
4. Establish a base of long-term, accredited puppy breeders.
5. Execute and maintain a volunteer recruitment, recognition and retention program.
6. Establish and execute marketing and communications plans to spread awareness of the benefits of service dogs for veterans; promote VMF activities and accomplishments; and recruit volunteers and veteran applicants.

Veterans Moving Forward maintains a facility that allows for training of service, therapy, and emotional support dogs. A full-time, certified, Director of Training and Programs, creates and executes our training programs to match the needs of our veterans. VMF also works closely with an expert medical board comprising doctors, TBI scientists, neuroscientists, therapists, and counsellors. These health professionals review the applications of veterans to ensure that all their physical and mental needs are addressed and carefully matched with a properly trained dog.

In addition to full-time staff, the VMF team includes a dedicated pool of unpaid volunteers, most of whom have extensive military or military family experience, as well as specialized consultants paid for specific tasks at highly reduced rates. The team includes dedicated professionals in the fields of accounting, animal behaviorists, behavioral health, business, law, nursing, marketing, occupational health, photojournalism, dog breeding and training, psychiatry, psychology, and veterinary medicine. Board members have corporate, military, non-profit financial and legal expertise, as well as oversight of our canine training and veteran matching programs.

To reach the military community and provide effective services, VMF has developed partnerships with over two dozen organizations and private clinicians over the past five years including medical centers, educational institutions, and veteran-centric organizations.

VMF has expanded the financial donor base to support the current plan and laid the foundation for future expansion.

Through our services, VMF is making a meaningful difference in the lives of disabled veterans by facilitating their recovery and increasing their safety and independence within their homes and communities. All VMF dogs serve veterans and their families as our model focuses on providing a variety of services in the form of highly trained comfort dogs, therapy dogs, facility dogs and service dogs.

VMF provides canine support to address both visible and invisible injuries, ranging from adjusting to loss of limbs to post-traumatic stress. These disabilities may result from either U.S. military service or through an accident or illness incurred in private life following that service. VMF’s service and assistance dogs will support veterans and military service members at medical centers, at a variety of veteran support centers, clinics, potentially in one-on-one therapy with mental health professionals, as well as at stressful or emotional events.

Veterans in need may receive service dogs after a VMF’s meticulous matching process that includes multiple assessments, approximately two years of puppy training, and multiple training sessions for the matched veteran and service dog. VMF’s careful matching of the service dog with the specific range of a veteran’s needs, along with the training tailored to meet those specific needs ensures a highly successful veteran-dog placement.

The current Department of Veteran Affairs’ policy is to provide service dogs only to veterans with visual or hearing impairment or select mobility challenges. VMF aims to focus on providing canine support to meet the full range of services (from dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to adjusting to loss of limbs or immobility) to meet the significant, unfulfilled needs of our Nation’s veterans of any armed service from any generation, campaign or peacetime service.

The VMF difference stems from our understanding and appreciation that each veteran and their challenges are unique to that individual veteran and his or her environment. Our meticulous custom matching of a veteran’s needs, the recognition of how canine therapy can play an important part of any veteran’s recovery, and then matching a dog’s capacity to provide the support to meet those needs includes multiple assessments and months, sometimes years of puppy training.

We are improving in every area, from growth in program successes (placement of service dogs and increasing therapy services), to increase in the volunteer corps numbers, strengthening of staff processes, and annual increases of fundraising goals and actual income.