HEALING COMPANIONS INC

HC Inc. is committed to increasing awareness of and access to psychiatric service dogs (PSDs) as a form of treatment of mental illnesses. The organization was formed primarily in response to the increased requests by people who met the criteria for having a PSD, but do not have the financial resources to pay for the training. Through the benefits of psychiatric services dogs we seek to help individuals become more independent and self-confident, allowing them to lead productive lives. We envision a future in which psychiatric service dogs are fully integrated into comprehensive care for individuals with mental illness. On the short-term we work to increase awareness of the benefits of PSDs and to provide PSDs to residents of Northeast Ohio who are in need of an alternative form of treatment for their mental illness.

Healing Companions' strategy to make this happen is broken down into three points:

1. Program: Establish a system to provide PSDs to those individuals within the region who request a PSD and who meet the requirements of the program. Healing Companions will initially provide up to 5 annual matches and up to 10 annual matches by year three of the program.

2. Resources: Develop financial and other resources necessary to sustain the mission and vision of the Organization including launching programs, creating infrastructure and marketing.

3. Awareness: Raise the level of knowledge of the value and benefits of PSDs within the mental health professional training curriculums (e.g., psychiatry, psychology, social work). In addition, by observing PSDs assisting clients in the community, the general public will have an enhanced image of those dealing with mental illness.

The essence of our work is the training of psychiatric service dogs. As a small organization HC Inc. is capable of truly tailoring the PSD training to meet the needs of the handler [client]. As opposed to training dogs on general service tasks we train PSDs to meet the needs of their handler so as to mitigate the effects of the symptoms of the handler's specific mental condition. We are committed to high ethical standards of training and therefore see the value of intensive one-on- one, individualized training, which can be extremely time-consuming. The organization trains only a limited number of PSDs simultaneously so as to guarantee the quality of the training each dog and handler are receiving. It takes 18-24 months to fully train each PSD.

Depending on the individual's disability and specific symptoms, PSDs are task trained to guide a handler disoriented by anxiety, conduct a room search to alleviate fear of intruders or the unknown, provide assistance in locating an individual's car when dissociating, interrupt a panic attack, obsessive compulsive behavior and/or nightmares, among a variety of other tasks. The tasks that the PSD is trained to perform allow individuals to go out into the world, hold jobs, study, develop healthy relationships, and essentially become able to cope with the ups and downs of daily life.

Healing Companions has been able to help clients treat mental health issues with individually trained psychiatric service dogs in a way that caters to the individual needs of the client.

While we have experienced success on all levels, going forward, we:

1. want to expand awareness of psychiatric service animals as treatment for mental health issues
2. need to expand our volunteer base which allows us to put the majority of our donations toward our mission
3. need to expand our donor base since our clients do not always have the ability to cover the cost of training a specialized psychiatric service dog to fit their specific needs.