Prerequisites for Membership

To become a Certified Member with a canine partner:

• You must be at least 18 years of age at the time of the screening evaluation.
• Your dog must be at least 18 months old at the time of the certification training workshop.
• You and your dog must be a registered member of a formal animal-assisted therapy organization and working with your dog as a therapy team for at least 12 consecutive months.
• You and your dog must have a minimum of 12 verifiable AAA/T visits within the last twelve months.
• You and your dog must successfully complete a HOPE AACR screening evaluation.
• You and your dog must successfully complete a certification training workshop.
• Your dog should not be easily stressed and should enjoy interacting with people.
• You should be in good health and be capable of handling the physical and mental stress of crisis response work and have sufficient energy levels adequate for crisis response work.
• Pay all fees related to screening and training workshop, membership fees, and purchase all necessary uniform items.

To become a Certified Member without a canine partner (Team Leader):

• You must be at least 18 years of age at the time of the screening evaluation.
• You should have some experience in animal-assisted therapy or some other experience working with dogs.
• You must successfully complete a HOPE AACR screening evaluation.
• You must successfully complete a certification training workshop.
• You should be in good health and be capable of handling the physical and mental stress of crisis response work.
• Pay all fees related to screening and training workshop, membership fees, and purchase all necessary uniform items.