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A group of volunteers founded the Winnipeg Humane Society in 1894 and are vital to our success today! With the help of volunteers, we can provide care, love and attention to our four (and sometimes two) legged friends until they find their forever homes. The MVP (Monthly Volunteer Profile) will recognize the work and get to know these special MVP’s in a spotlight each month that includes an article and photo shoot. MVPs will receive a framed photo and gift card as our thanks!

Is there a volunteer you’d like to nominate to be MVP? E-mail us ([email protected]) and tell us why you think they should be an MVP!

Check out our previous MVP’s


MVP: Amy and Monique

Amy Braunstein and Monique Tellier love working with children. They have devoted years to the education system working with students with special needs.

Amy and Monique also love dogs and have helped to develop an innovative program with the Winnipeg Humane Society, teaching students about pet empathy and utilizing pet therapy alongside their dogs!

“My involvement started with me adopting Johnny (her Labradoodle) about three years ago,” Amy said. “I adopted him from the WHS and they asked me what I thought about the Dog Ambassador program. I knew that Johnny was very intelligent and friendly with people, so we started with the Dog Ambassador program representing the Winnipeg Humane Society at public events. From there I moved on to do more things with the Education Department –like going into schools during exam week to provide some stress relief.”

Amy said that around that time, the Winnipeg Humane Society showed an interest in expanding its educational programs. Cat Ross was hired to take on the position of Senior manager, Marketing Education & Volunteer Services. She has been a huge supporter of Amy and Monique’s work, according to them both.

“Because I work in schools as an Occupational Therapist with students with special needs, I wanted to offer an opportunity to combine these two things. I spoke with Cat and she told me the WHS wanted to expand its educational programs,” Amy said. “We started with a pilot program with Maples Collegiate. That’s when I asked Monique to join me because I knew that her dog had also gone through the St. John Ambulance program to become a therapy dog and that she’d have no problem with the Behaviour Assessment at WHS.”

“My Standard Poodle, Finn, was doing some work with St. John Ambulance as a therapy dog so I wanted to expand upon that a bit,” Monique added. “With me being a school Social Worker, Amy and I have worked together in the past. We’ve often shared our mutual passion of doing our work with our dogs and working with children as well. I had brought in some other animals into some of my schools to do some pet empathy and to teach the kids about a lot of different topics, whether it was social skills or talking about emotions,” Monique continued. “I just loved seeing that kind of work as an avenue for teaching kids these skills, so when Amy suggested I join on here with the WHS I was all over that.”

“In the last school year, we secured four visits to Maples Collegiate under the pilot program. Sessions were also delivered at Clinical Support Services, the LIFE program (Leisure In Fun Environments), and Summer Camp offered through the SSCY Centre (Specialized Services for Children and Youth). The LIFE Program Camp is for children with complex physical care needs. I attended once a week over the summer with my dogs to provide pet therapy.  The children were able to spend time with the dogs, petting them and walking them,” Amy shares. “I also provided pet therapy visits to the SOS Camp (Stepping Out on Saturdays Manitoba), a day respite camp for children with an FASD diagnosis that runs out of the SSCY Center.   The dogs and I met with small groups of children who were able to interact with the dogs, learn about caring for dogs, dog health, and then made connections to caring for themselves.”

“There’s a lot of teaching you can do through animals that we’re learning about as we go along,” Monique added. “It can be talking about empathy for others, things like boundaries, body
language, for example –what their bodies are telling from the way they are acting or standing and relating that to people.”

The program offers help to students in many areas, Monique continued. “Part of it is teaching them about animal care and animal needs and expanding that into how we can learn to take care of ourselves and what our feelings and emotions are, and how we can learn more about other people’s emotions and be more empathetic.”

This year, Maples Collegiate has signed on and committed to a number of sessions each semester. Many other schools and organizations have indicated an interest in having sessions delivered to their students.

A curriculum being developed in an evolving process, Amy said. “We take any feedback we receive and run it by Cat, who reviews them or runs other ideas by us, linking dog therapy or pet empathy with schools. We’re delivering the materials along with our dogs (Amy’s other dog –a Golden Doodle named Gordie –also participates) and the WHS is delivering the background and the curriculum and we’re modifying it as we need, depending upon the children that we’re working with.”

“The lucky part for us is being able to have a partnership with the Winnipeg Humane Society,” Amy continued. “It’s been a great partnership for us to do this kind of volunteering and mesh our work with kids and animals.”

“The Winnipeg Humane Society has been very supportive,” Monique said, “in terms of being very open minded and using out-of-the-box thinking. They’ve been a great support.”

“We were seeing an increase of interest in the Pet Empathy and Pet Therapy style sessions and with Amy and Monique’s background and desire to support, it became a no brainer to partner,” Cat said. “They come with such passion and innovative ideas to continue to evolve this program with our organization, that’s invaluable!”

Written by: Brian Kozak, Volunteer