Helping youth thrive through 4-H: the positive youth development model
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I have been a Cuyahoga County 4-H program volunteer for over a decade.; 4-H is a community of young people across America who are learning leadership, citizenship, and life skills as they work in partnership with caring adults. The 4-H program, a program of The Ohio State University Extension Office, is the nation's largest positive youth development program. In my volunteer role with 4-H, I have served as both a Club Advisor, as well as the founder and Director of the Cuyahoga County Pet Pals Program. As a Club Advisor, I help to guide youth in conducting Club activities, as well as teach youth argricultural production principles that ensure quality care of livestock production animals.
Jack Coyne, Coyne Cattle Company (Medina, Ohio) and Henry Pierce, NR Homesteaders 4-H Club, Grand Champion Black Angus
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The Cuyahoga County Pet Pals Program is a program where I teach 4-H youth how to select and train companion animals for visits to assisted living through Ohio State University's
4-H Pet Pals Program. The Club visits a local assisted living facility for summertime visits. All animals must pass a Socialized Pet Pals test, as well as obtain a certificate of good health from their veterinarian. |
Kevin, Paula and Addy Nather with Hershey and Misty
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Animals as Partners in improving children's mental health & well-being
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How Animals Can Help Youth. In 2017, after almost two decades as a science writer in children's mental health and a lifetime of interacting with animals, I began to think about how animals could partner with humans in more systematic, evidence-based, goal-oriented ways to improve mental health. I co-authored my first paper in the animal assisted interventions arena, called Animal-Assisted Therapies for Youth with or at Risk for Mental Health Problems: A Systematic Review. The paper reviewed the many ways animals, in partnership with human services professionals, worked in tandem to improve child mental health and well-being.
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The Reining in Anxiety Clinical Trial. In 2020, as part of a New York University-based research team that conducted the clinical trial, Reining in Anxiety, at and in partnership with Fieldstone Farm Therapeutic Riding Center, I worked with the team to develop materials for trial participants, including a homework journal (see cover to the right), as well as a variety of teaching aids for the PATH-certified instructors who implemented the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-based (CBT) intervention aimed at reducing youth anxiety symptoms. In addition, I evaluated the delivery of the Reining in Anxiety interventions, conducting fidelity checks across the 10-session, CBT-based intervention.
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Working with Youth in Alternative Educational Settings: Gaitway High School. While at Fieldstone Farm assisting with the Reining in Anxiety clinical trial, I also completed my social work fieldwork at Gaitway High School, an alternative high school located within Fieldstone Farm Therapeutic Riding Center. Working alongside a licensed school social worker, my fieldwork included one-on-one counseling, skill-building groups for adolescents, as well as leading project-based learning (PBL) activities centered around nature. In addition, I created a plan for a new sensory room to meet the needs of youth with sensory needs.
when the bond is broken: a proposed CBT-based intervention for pet loss
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After many of my own personal companion animal losses, and after attending an online Pet Loss Support Group and reflecting on it for a VSW certificate assignment, I began to explore the availability of in-veterinary clinic pet loss support interventions to support children and their families enduring the loss of their family pet.
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Finding no interventions in the research literature or in practice geared toward children and families, I began developing an intervention for children and families to support them both in-clinic during the time of their loss, and in the weeks after, through a semi-structured pet loss support group for children and families. This proposed intervention, called PAWS, is described above.
My "wHY": my love of animals and the power of the human-animal bond
I have lived alongside animals for most of my life. They were there during my childhood, dogs named Trouble, Cindy, and Walter (with Trouble as the most memorable for his birthday cake eating exploits). They were there during early adulthood (my beloved dachshunds, Dutchie, Hobbes, and Bindi), some joined us as we raised our family, including many chickens, amongst them my sweet Rhode Island Red hen Lucy, and a Chocolate Lab named Malley, and beloved kitties Penny, Mac, Corey and Betty. More recently, animals have been alongside me on my professional journey, including in the arena, via adaptive riding (see Reining in Anxiety Clinical Trial, above) and hippotherapy (as an adjunctive therapy for autism spectrum disorder), as well as in my volunteer role with 4-H youth delivering animal-assisted activities to seniors in assisted living.
Across all of these experience, one thing has remained constant:
the power of the human-bond to improve the lives of so many individuals.
Across all of these experience, one thing has remained constant:
the power of the human-bond to improve the lives of so many individuals.