ICAN's mission and programs serve two different audiences in the state of Indiana.
1) Children and adults with physical or developmental disabilities
2) Incarcerated adults.
In Indiana it is estimated that 450,000 people are living with disabilities, many of them children. People with disabilities and their families may find they live more independent lives with the help of an service dog trained in skills and behaviors that match the person's needs, health considerations, and lifestyle.
Dogs trained for service work can perform tasks to help their person with day-to-day activities, such as:
Retrieval of dropped items or items that can't be reached, such as the phone
Transporting items from their client's possession to another person's, such as money at a bank counter
Opening/closing doors and cabinets
Pulling up covers
Turning on/off light switches
Tugging off clothes
Moving clothes from the dryer to a basket
Clients with service dogs often find their dogs bring with them two other important gifts, often unexpectedly. First, they provide an emotional outlet and unconditional love, and second, a dog can serve as a bridge and connect the non-disabled world with the disabled world.
By working with a dog's innate temperament and eagerness to be with people, ICAN is able to provide service dogs that enjoy the work they do and whose talents best match a client's needs. Every dog in the ICAN program shows ICAN staff their strengths, their motivations, and their limitations, which allows ICAN to train the dog in the type of service work best suited to the dog's personality and temperament.
For each client, the benefits of having a service dog vary.
ICAN also serves:
Carefully screened female and male offenders living inside medium and maximum security Indiana correctional facilities train ICAN dogs for 1-1/2 to 2 years. Offenders who train with the ICAN program are called handlers.
Dogs-in-training live side-by-side with the handlers inside the prison. Each dog is removed from prison regularly to take part in community-based furloughs where the dog learns the ways of the world in which he or she will ultimately work.
By having responsibility for the dog 24 hours a days, 7 days a week, for nearly 2 years time, handlers in the ICAN program learn a variety of professional and life management skills to help them with a successful re-entry to their communities. Handlers more fully develop life skills such as responsibility and accountability, compassion, teamwork, pride in their achievements, self-esteem, unconditional love, discipline, and the use of logic over emotion to achieve goals. These skills are taken into the community when the handler is released from prison. Several now-released offenders who trained under the ICAN program are productively employed today in animal-related professions and leading lives that serve the community.
