A Fair Shake for Youth helps New York City middle school students build social and emotional skills through a structured hands-on program with therapy dogs

Following a 10-week curriculum, students learn dog-handling skills and discuss dog-related topics that often resonate with their own life experience – animal shelters, second chances and breed discrimination. They practice positive reinforcement, see the power of verbal and non-verbal communication and build relationships based on trust and respect.

The dogs, honest, non-judgmental and highly social, make it safes for the students to open up to learn about themselves and each other, to build the skills and behaviors critical to academic learning and to navigating life’s challenges and opportunities, and to find their best selves.