08/19/2023
A short history lesson:
30 years ago …. a group of people and dogs in Salt Lake City started Intermountain Therapy Animals. That was 1993.
In 1999, this same group decided to start a program called Reading Education Assistance Dogs® (R.E.A.D.®) It was not long after that that they decided to open up the R.E.A.D. Program to Teams from a host of other therapy animal registries. These Teams trained and joined the R.E.A.D. Program as another type of therapy work.
In 2003, as a Therapy Team…newly trained in the R.E.A.D. Program…..I decided to start a nonprofit named READing Paws® and offered to support the R.E.A.D. Teams in AL, FL, GA, TN & NV. In 2006, we submitted our application for READing Paws to become an Affiliate Group of the national R.E.A.D. Program.
In 2010, I registered with ITA with the agreement that I would start a nonprofit called TPC-Therapy Patient Connections®. It would operate in TN, GA, AL and FL and train and assess new Teams using the ITA format, policies and procedures. Therefore - TPC-Therapy Patient Connections applied and became an Affiliate Group of Intermountain Therapy Animals.
So yes…founded in 1993 - ITA is now 30 yrs old!
R.E.A.D. Celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2019 after being founded in 1999.
And if I add all this up…READing Paws is 17 years old this year and TPC is 13 years old this year!!
