Our Come, Follow Me! program is a six session group program of social skills building and dog training for special needs children. Based on the principles of behavioral therapies and clicker training, Come, Follow Me! has provided a heartwarming service to children in central Connecticut. In one study, we demonstrated that with incorporation of TAG teach with the clicker and animal assisted interventions, children demonstrated increased eye contact and body awareness.
Soul Friends’ mission to “heal the hearts of the children one wagging tail at a time” drives our daily work in serving children. We believe in the power of the love from an animal friend to help children cope with major life circumstances, to help change behavior and to try something new to bring about hope. As a nonprofit that stands strongly behind our mission, we also believe we need to consistently demonstrate our program effectiveness through research efforts.
Our humane education program, WE LOVE ANIMALS! demonstrated an increased in humane perceptions in first grade schoolchildren after 6 sessions of curriculum based programs that incorporated animals. Our results were published in a scholarly journal , Society and Animals.