North Star Foundation & The University of California at San Bernardino
Demonstrate the Power of Partnership
Last year Jamie Grover, Project Coordinator & Editor of The University Center for Developmental Disabilities publication Voice, contacted me regarding a potential partnership that would greatly expand our capacity to help children with challenges in the state of California. UCDD's groundbreaking parents' program had long been searching for an organization to help them acquire assistance dogs to help their children with developmental differences, and we are very pleased they selected North Star to partner with in order to achieve this goal. To date we have created three North Star placements with children from UCDD's program, with several more placements in progress…
North Star dogs Lucky and Bingo were selected from a high quality litter of golden retriever pups that were bred by Donna Rhodes of Crossroads Retrievers in Northfield, Massachusetts and transported to California by Patty and Ron Gross (Executive Director and Treasurer of North Star).
These pups come from a line that has been cultivated for both soundness as well as temperament; they were raised with Donna's children, who provided them with plenty of socialization opportunities.
The ultimate temperament of a dog is an interplay of nature as well as nurture, and at North Star we pay close attention to both these important areas with pups slated to work with children with challenges.
Puppy raising homes in California were very carefully selected: Ann Regan and Alisa Rosseter took Lucky and Bingo into their respective homes and are currently in the midst of giving these special pups a very enriched first year of life.
Trainer Becky Chadwick of J9's K9s (
www.j9sk9s.com) was brought on board to guide the pups' early training program and is currently training the pups a blocking technique to help them to block their children's impending flight.
The children that will receive these pups have been enjoying supported visits with them.
At North Star we believe in the power of early bonding and seize the opportunity to begin to educate the children about how to care for their dog right from the start.
Our next UCDD placement will be with a set of triplets who are all on the autism spectrum that live in Palm Desert.
A North Star dog named Winston has been selected to work with these brothers; Winston is a handsome yellow lab from an excellent breeder in Northern California named Laurie Soloski of Kentfield Kennels, who has provided North Star with several dogs over the past few years that are doing very well with the children that they serve.
Winston's early training and socialization has been specifically geared to working with children on the spectrum, and his heart is as gold as his fur; he will be trained to alert when any of the boys wander and to provide the boys with educational and social opportunities.
Jamie Grover and the parents in his group have come up with a innovative “Pay it Forward” campaign to help to raise funds for the placements that we are partnering up to achieve.
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Pairing children and assistance dogs is a time consuming and expensive task, and any help you can offer us is greatly appreciated.
Your generous donation is also tax deductible, as we are a not for profit organization.
For more information or to find out how you can donate to this campaign, please contact Jamie at the following address:
Jamie Grover
Project Coordinator & The UCDD Voice, Editor
California State University - San Bernardino
University Center for Developmental Disabilities
5500 University Parkway
San Bernardino, CA 92407
Direct Line: (909) 537-3550
UCDD Main Line: (909) 537-5495
Fax: (909) 537-7002
UCDD's website,
www.csusb.edu/coe/cg/ucdd, contains several articles and slide shows that provide information on our placements in progress…
