Between the Hood and Heaven:
Utilizing Animal-Assisted Therapy to Expand the Myopic
View of Juvenile Offenders in Inner City Facilities and Its
Implications for Future Dolphin-Assisted Therapy Programs

Presenter: Robbin A. Sebastiani, B.S., MSW Candidate
Staff Intern/Therapist for Cook County Juvenile
Detention, Chicago, Illinois

I bring to this conference a series of challenges to be considered and addressed.
My first consideration is to introduce you to the population of children that I work with on a daily basis a population that is exponentially expanding at a threateningly dangerous rate, a population that needs and deserves the attentions of qualified individuals to assist in questioning their actions, their lives, their environments, and their futures.

My second challenge is to ask that marine mammal facilities consider the options of developing more programs dealing with our "at-risk" or juvenile offender populations utilizing qualified therapeutic staff and tasks to introduce these individuals to opportunities, skills and, most importantly to the magnificent animals that they may never before have had a chance to see or interact with. I currently work with two populations children incarcerated and children on probation. My animal-assisted therapy program W.O.L.F.P.A.C.C. (Working on Life's Future - People and Animals Creating Choices), works with children on probation children that the courts have deemed safe to release into the general public. None of the children that I have worked with have ever been to an oceanarium or seen a whale or dolphin "up-close" let alone been able to touch or interact with one. My client population lives in an urban environment that supports two such facilities. Both facilities seem to be reluctant to accept any type of research or program proposal that does not directly address biological or conservational issues. We are now entering a new century where we will need to address four "R"s in school: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Relationship Building. Many of my clients lack in all four of these areas. It is my intent that animals are a conduit to this last "R" for children who have already lost trust and confidence in their relationships with people. I ask the symposium to consider Are dolphins and small whales promising animals to utilize in this type of work? Or am I overestimating their engagement and "relationship building" capacities on a limited basis? Besides their trainers, will these animals respond and engage with children that they encounter on a regular basis?

My third challenge is for us to truthfully address the "politically correct" term that has become so popular with marine mammal facilities that of being a facility that only teaches "conservation". Unless we can get the next generations of kids to even begin to relate on a personal level with the animals that we are trying to "conserve and protect", we will never get through to them what the importance is regarding these global ideas. As much as we would like to believe that we are quickly becoming "a global society", we have huge populations of children that cannot see past the end of their block or the end of their day let alone into the future and beyond.

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