HOPE AACR
Providing comfort and encouragement through animal-assisted support to individuals affected by crises and disasters.
HOPE Animal-Assisted Crisis Response is a national all-volunteer, non-profit, crisis response organization with specially trained handlers (psychological first aid, incident command, etc) and canines trained and tested for crisis response work. Agencies call upon HOPE AACR teams to provide comfort and support to people affected by disasters. Scientific evidence has shown animals are a positive factor in helping people cope with traumatic events. HOPE AACR teams are educated to be effective and professional while working in stressful, unpredictable environments.
Teams across the country respond locally to many events as well as responding to events across the country. Recently, teams have been called out to support the communities around Prescott and Yarnell, Arizona following the devastating fires in 2013 that killed 19 firefighters and destroyed multiple homes; to comfort school children affected by the Colorado flooding that destroyed so many homes; to aid in the recovery of the staff at the Washington Naval Shipyard following the mass shooting September 16th, 2013 as well as to provide support to those affected by the Oso, WA landslide in 2014.
JJ and Tracy became a certified HOPE K9 team in August 2013, joining 16 other new teams who participated in the Bozeman, MT Certification Workshop. They participated in a variety of deployments after the landslide in Oso, WA, following the shooting at Seattle Pacific University, as well as helping to support local schools after crises until JJ's death in 2017.
Find out more about HOPE AACR here.
