Making a Difference as an ASPCA Volunteer
It is striking how retired nurses often claim they are no longer working and then proceed to list many different volunteer activities that are equal to or more than a day of being a nurse. Sue Gillis, BSN, RN, represents these volunteer nurses.
Sue has spent many hours assisting homebound individuals by walking their dogs through a community program called PAWS-NY (Pets Are Wonderful Support). She also volunteers at the ASPCA in its Storytelling Program for abused and abandoned dogs.
A native New Yorker and a graduate of the University of Buffalo’s School of Nursing, Sue Gillis practiced her profession for four decades in the psychiatric nursing department at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in NYC.
Sue’s nursing specialty was caring for children and adolescents with mental health problems and disorders. On the evening shift, children had the opportunity to have a bedtime story read to them by a nursing staff member. This quiet oneon-one time helped the children settle into a bedtime routine, resulting in restorative sleep patterns while experiencing a meaningful interaction with an adult.
Therefore, she was intrigued by the ASPCA program that provided a similar one-on-one relationship for dogs traumatized by physical and emotional abuse. Both the children and the dogs had been in homes where the behavior of others resulted in insecurity, fear, distress, and trauma. They are unsocialized and often initially unable to understand the interactive cues that signify someone is safe and can be trusted because they only know the opposite. Storytelling for children and dogs serves as a pathway to safety. The relationships established with nurses and volunteers are a vital first step in learning to trust and recover and, for the ASPCA dogs, finding a loving forever home.
Sue describes the sessions as being catered to the temperament of the dog. Nothing is forced or regimented. It occurs in a quiet, safe setting providing the animal with a comfortable place. The volunteers sit down on the floor with the dog and proceed to read a “story.” It can be anything that interests the volunteer reader. It is the sharing of the relationship that is important. Sue notes that volunteers are instructed to use a “soothing, rhythmic, nonthreatening, and caring voice, providing physical human contact as the dog seeks it.” The length of each session is catered to the interest level of the dog, ideally with progressively longer sessions as the dog begins to heal and recover and welcomes more human contact.
Sue has observed that cats’ need for human contact, while comforting and meaningful, is often very different from dogs and children. They may not get the same benefits from story time, but the ASPCA cares for both dogs and cats. For more information about volunteering with the ASPCA, visit aspca.org.
—Karen A. Ballard, MA, RN, FAAN Nursing Consultant specializing in scope of nursing practice issues, environmental
health, and health care policy