Have you ever heard of animal-assisted therapy? Wikipedia defines it as “a type of therapy that involves an animal with specific characteristics becoming a fundamental part of a person’s treatment.” This type of therapy can have all kinds of beneficial effects for a wide array of ailments, and it can be done with animals ranging from dogs to horses to elephants to lizards. Green Chimneys is a Brewster, NY based non-profit organization that “operates residential treatment for children and a special education school” with a large focus on animal-assisted therapy. They’re located on a 200-acre farm, and they’re constantly working towards “restoring possibilities and creating futures for children with emotional, behavioral, social and learning challenges.”
If you love working with special-needs children and also love animals, then it would be hard to find a better place to intern than Green Chimneys. Right now there are two internship opportunities posted on their Internships page – Farm Internships and Clinical Psychology Internships (this one is a lot more advanced than most typical internships). Both of those links offer a ton of information on the internships, so you have a lot of reading ahead of you if you’re interested, including the Top 10 Reasons Why People Intern at Green Chimneys Farm (.doc file). If you do choose to apply, you’ll have to download and fill out their application form, and obviously send it in too. Don’t forget to check out Green Chimneys’ Jobs page too. They have a couple jobs that could be considered internship substitutes.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
Have you ever experienced any therapy animals?
Do I Know Anyone at Green Chimneys? - Check LinkedIn | Check Facebook
Tags: agriculture, animals, education, Internships, New York, non-profit, outreach, psychology, social work, teaching
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