Stacey J Sinwald: Hi! My name is Anna Sparks, and I'm. Here with Stacey Sin. Well, Phd. Candidate, Lpc. And Cpd. T. K. A. Sizy. Can you introduce yourself, your organization, and how your experience and credentials align with it.
Stacey J Sinwald: Yeah. So my background is in psychology, clinical mental health counseling. So my bachelor is in psychology with a minor in sociology that I went on to get my masters in education and clinical mental health counseling.
Stacey J Sinwald: and I'm currently pursuing my doctorate in education. A/C: so a doll continuing in higher education, track non k. 12 path emphasizing program, planning program, development things of that nature.
Stacey J Sinwald: And so that's kind of my academic world from a professional sense. Once I got my masters, I got into, of course, counseling as the title of clinical mental health counseling suggests, and simultaneously
Stacey J Sinwald: became the co-director, and launched a nonprofit called riley's angels where we train therapy dogs between more than therapy dogs. But that's really our specialization and so i'd say, what makes it a little bit different and more interesting is that it's more from a human education. Approach
Stacey J Sinwald: more of that to come, but essentially offering therapy dog programming for organizations as well as individuals who want to be on the community working with their dog.
Stacey J Sinwald: So that being said, the psychology and clinical background is helpful, both working with people, of course, because, to be honest, it's more training the people than the dogs, but also honestly referencing psychology. 101 concepts in dog development as well. It's super important to understand kind of these training windows
Stacey J Sinwald: and developmental periods and dogs, just as we know there are in humans to give us the best chance at success in creating a well-rounded therapy dog.
Stacey J Sinwald: So as far as my doctorate work goes.
What I'm really looking to do is kind of integrate these 2 worlds, that being
Stacey J Sinwald: developing the research around under better understanding how therapy dogs can be involved, both in a clinical setting, as well as an educational setting. So way back when kind of my long pitched dream was to have this private practice of my own at the time. I couldn't tell you what my credentials would be, but
Stacey J Sinwald: something in the mental health field with a therapy dog next to me at work every day, and as I got going I realized
Stacey J Sinwald: it's not much of a dream. That's a serious reality. So let's go a little bit bigger than that rather than just being in that atmosphere, how can I help develop other people and other organizations to be able to utilize that space? Similarly, and tailor it to their specific needs. So that's kind of where the program planning comes in. My
Stacey J Sinwald: all my research for my Doc program is on the use of therapy dogs, and just being able to have seen first hand. The way that therapy dogs can be helpful. You know. We kind of think that K. 12 setting like younger kids, and then, like seeing therapy dogs come into high school, if that's great.
Stacey J Sinwald: But what we've realized over time is their feeddowns are really for everyone, and you know all ages of the lifespan developmentally, and they do a lot and offer a lot when it comes to kind of individualizing services and making things a bit better for people. So that's kind of how this is all intertwining.
Stacey J Sinwald: and I think that that that gives you a gist of of the background. I know we'll dive. We'll do a deeper dive into more specific things. But I think that kind of covers where Riley's angels fits in
Stacey J Sinwald: to the education standpoint. Yeah, that's very impressive. I really like what you said about the therapy dog training. Can you help the listeners better understand how your specialized therapy dog training highlights, traditional, formal, and informal education. And what does a normal class look like for you?
Stacey J Sinwald: Yeah. So I guess that's kind of where there might initially seem to be a disconnect. So thinking about, like our traditional formal learning environments this these are your structured classroom style, you know. There's a teacher and students. You're in an educational setting, and you kind of have goal Oriented drive or or tasks that you're doing to need a specific need.
Stacey J Sinwald: And so formal. It's gonna be appropriate, especially when we're talking about the therapy dog class like how we structure our therapy on training is very much. You know part of it's true classroom style, where we're just educating the humans on
Stacey J Sinwald: what is a therapy dog? What is the difference in a therapy dog, a service dog and an emotional support animal. What are your legal rights as a handler? And what are your legal, not rights, or what can you not do with a therapy dog.
Stacey J Sinwald: What can you ask if somebody else has a dog that you think is not a therapy dog? Things of that nature. So that's kind of where the formal education comes into play.
Stacey J Sinwald: You could argue kind of our regular puppy training classes have a bit of that as well. They're still kind of like an instructor style students listening and kind of working through and practicing those things. But I think the formal really comes into play a bit more in the therapy dog classes
Stacey J Sinwald: informal. These are, you know, your environments. Where there's no real goals or intentions. Everything's kind of unplanned self directed learning. So
Stacey J Sinwald: the only way that this really comes into play is, if a client has a specific need or concern with a dog that maybe i'm not best suited to work with. I might give them recommendations on places to do their own research.
Stacey J Sinwald: so that might entail them like looking up different training videos, working with specific trainers that I've done a lot of research on, but informal learning, probably Isn't as best described by what what I do.
Stacey J Sinwald: Non formal learning, on the other hand is very, very much what I do. So this a lot of times happens outside of formal learning environments, but still has an organizational framework.
Stacey J Sinwald: and a lot of times. You see this in a community setting, so I think a a good example is like swim lessons like there's still kind of that instructor model. And yet you're not like sitting there reading a textbook right like this is kind of a different setting, so that's very much how the therapy dog class. Most of the therapy class is structured. So again, we have our formal training where we're actually educating the humans on what they can do, what they can do stress signals what to be on the lookout for their dog, how to advocate for their dogs.
Stacey J Sinwald: But then the last 2 thirds of class is actually out in the community doing this work
Stacey J Sinwald: and practicing with our community partners. So this is actually what I would say is where experiential learning comes into play. At this point the dog should be really well rounded. I should have a really good grip on their temperament. I need to be confident that if my name is attached to these dogs. I'm. Putting them into a space where
Stacey J Sinwald: one it's appropriate for them to be to. I've gotten approval by our community partners and 3. We're not going to let them down. So they've already passed multiple certifications to get to this point. But you know, just like anything else.
Stacey J Sinwald: think of it as like an internship like you kind of have to be doing the work to some degree to really get a feel for whether or not. It's going to be a good fit for the dog, and also for the human.
Stacey J Sinwald: And that's that's really how we run it, because there's really no better way to to see that. So I would say. The big things that we're capturing are formal learning.
Stacey J Sinwald: non formal and experiential learning. That's kind of where, from an educator standpoint. I'm. Seeing these being fit.
Stacey J Sinwald: So it sounds like You're very hands on very community, based. So what did the first few months of the pandemic look like for your organization and your clients regarding your instructional practice.
Stacey J Sinwald: Yeah. So of course, we were completely shut down. You know
Stacey J Sinwald: we're considered non essential. I'm using airports because I could probably make a 1 million arguments saying that we were essential, just based on the havoc that was reaped when we, you know, came out on the other side. But essentially, you know, training was halted. It couldn't really do much. So I tried to make an effort to post more online, and we have some more online content.
Stacey J Sinwald: Of course, that doesn't substitute for dog training itself. And really, the big thing is not even when i'm like the best trainer on the planet. It's just like having a space for people to be coming regularly and working it's just like with humans. If you don't use it. You lose it getting into that atmosphere, practicing in that structured way.
Stacey J Sinwald: So just kind of posting stuff online I knew was not going to do it, but I still wanted to keep my clients and students engaged as best as I could. But that's the reality of all we could do at that time.
Stacey J Sinwald: So once things began to open back up and the stay home order was lifted. How did you begin to ease back into your training? Well, Of course the math mandate and 6 foot rule is in place. So we had to follow that which was tough.
Stacey J Sinwald: because, as a very poor nonprofit, and we train out of a local Salvation Army building which is not fitted for dawn training. Necessarily so. It was a tight squeeze. But you know we made it work. The other thing was honestly
Stacey J Sinwald: desensitizing the dogs to masks. Of course we had to be in a mask, and a huge part of our training is the relationship that we build with our dogs, and if half of our face is covered with a mask, we are taking away some of those body language queues.
Stacey J Sinwald: So really working on being a better trainer, and how to engage in that way. And then, of course, for the therapy dog class, we couldn't get into a lot of these settings we needed to for their
Stacey J Sinwald: experiential learning components like specifically medical settings months. And actually it was almost a year later before we were able to actually get into those settings that we needed to for that training.
Stacey J Sinwald: So what were some of the major challenges that you face early on when re-entering our new new normal and education and training.
Stacey J Sinwald: I would say some things that I felt like really needed to be happening we're having flexibility, so kind of
Stacey J Sinwald: just going with the flow, and recognizing that some some things are going to be out of our control, being open to feedback and adjusting, recognizing that again as the educator. Yes, you're seen as the expert, and also
Stacey J Sinwald: I can't be an expert in everything, so my clients and students are the expert of their experiences, and they they know their dogs better than I know, their dogs. So being open to their feedback, and what they might need, and offering extra support during a time when we were just shut down for months on end and training was halted.
Stacey J Sinwald: and I said the other thing was creativity.
Stacey J Sinwald: So finding workarounds to the atmosphere that we were training, since we couldn't get into medical settings, how can we teach these dogs how to interact in a hospital setting one of the biggest things. That's one of the more challenging environments because of all the movement beats buzzing. You know, oxygen masks, things that look different and sound different, and are very sudden.
Stacey J Sinwald: So yeah, that that was definitely important for us to get creative, and how we were handling those.
Stacey J Sinwald: So a lot of adapting. I'm hearing definitely what new insights are perspectives that you gain during the pandemic that will shape your future teaching practice.
Well.
Stacey J Sinwald: you know, I think it's going to be a matter of maintaining that comfortability and openness to finding new ways of doing things.
Stacey J Sinwald: recognizing that the dogs are different now, or we're different, especially at that time, the ones who are part way through. So being prepared for that separation. Anxiety, kind of stranger danger dogs we're used to being with their human 24, 7. And suddenly humans are back to work. That's a big shift.
Stacey J Sinwald: And so to be honest one of the biggest things that it has really come from. It is where we can be working and and mimicking those. So, for example, Home Depot was one of the first places open that we had a community partnership with and have for a while. But we always saw that as like such an easy environment to be in, and that was like phase one because even if dogs failed, we were in a dog friendly store.
Stacey J Sinwald: What we realize is we can actually create it to mimic another environment by having some of the employees run the forklift, for instance, or run the bandsaw so big, loud set of noises that could mimic some of those things we were seeing in like the hospital settings so
really embracing that flexibility and creativity.
Stacey J Sinwald: So all these adjustments have you noticed any lasting effects of these Covid cohorts.
Stacey J Sinwald: Yeah, definitely, so honestly, to this day I have therapy on teams from the cohort that halted back in March of 2,020 that still come in and do brush up classes. I think it really really highlights again. Go back to site 101 with the people.
Stacey J Sinwald: just as humans do. Dogs have training and developmental windows that need to be handled If, as they come, and for those dogs who are in that position serious, long term effects. They were great dogs. They have a desire to work. They have the foundational skills.
Stacey J Sinwald: and yet we don't necessarily have the confidence that we've seen with dogs in previous cohorts, and then cohorts that we're able to actually go through the whole program, start to finish without that stopping. And again, all these environmental changes that we're going on at home.
Stacey J Sinwald: not to mention the humans, who were probably a little bit more on edge and didn't know necessarily what was to come.
Stacey J Sinwald: So it sounds like you're doing a lot of really important work. And then everything here's been really impressive. So thank you for everything you done for a community if you had to put it into words. What are the most significant challenges you face as a pandemic pandemic era. Educator. And how have you confronted them?
Stacey J Sinwald: I would say the biggest things for me personally, were fear, you know. Will we make it out of this? Will we be able to remain as an organization, and like, will we be here? You know what is? What is the other side of the pandemic?
Stacey J Sinwald: Similarly kind of going along with that, having the sense of the unknown, will we be able to use the space we need? I'm a control freak. I want to have my classes put together to the end degree. And when I get a phone call from a nursing home an hour before class starts saying we have a Covid breakout. We're not allowing visitors.
Stacey J Sinwald: How can I adapt to that, and make sure I have what my students need to get the material for their dogs to be successful.
Stacey J Sinwald: and then confidence to, you know, lacking it at times, feeling that I let the students down. Things were kind of going haywire here and there. Those were kind of the biggest challenges. So for me personally, having that mental health background is super helpful kind of
Stacey J Sinwald: recognizing that dwelling on the concerns or worrying is not going to help and
Stacey J Sinwald: being open to what everybody needs being supportive. And recognizing that at the end of the day we're all people. We're all humans. And there's there's space for all of us to be learning and adapting
Stacey J Sinwald: awesome. Well, that's been very educational, and I appreciate you taking the time to come out. Yeah, thanks so much. Anna.