Animal Welfare Professionals

Hey Tami,

I'm genuinely shocked to hear that there are places that say these humane education initiatives don't make a difference! Full disclosure, my rescue is an exotic pet trade rescue, not cats and dogs. That being said, we do animal education (to promote adopting not shopping, and basic welfare thoughts for the audience to keep in mind).  And I personally feel that it makes a difference. It leads to people becoming fosters, adopters, sending their friends our info, etc. We do these programs for everyone from preschool to retirement homes. 
While I have never researched the statistics of this, and am only speaking from personal experience, I would disagree with anyone, any day, that these in-person education programs do not work. From personal experience :)

I've attached a photo from a humane education class we did recently. The students spoke little english, and we had to utilize a translator. Still, they were so excited and were asking so many wonderful questions about adoption vs shopping. 

Thank you for responding, Brittany! I wish you were in Louisville so you could come talk to my campers!! 

I am going to have to do a deep dive on a literature search to see what I can find. Sometimes we have to just keep on believing until the data catches up I guess. 

Hey Tami,

I'm genuinely shocked to hear that there are places that say these humane education initiatives don't make a difference! Full disclosure, my rescue is an exotic pet trade rescue, not cats and dogs. That being said, we do animal education (to promote adopting not shopping, and basic welfare thoughts for the audience to keep in mind).  And I personally feel that it makes a difference. It leads to people becoming fosters, adopters, sending their friends our info, etc. We do these programs for everyone from preschool to retirement homes. 
While I have never researched the statistics of this, and am only speaking from personal experience, I would disagree with anyone, any day, that these in-person education programs do not work. From personal experience :)

I've attached a photo from a humane education class we did recently. The students spoke little english, and we had to utilize a translator. Still, they were so excited and were asking so many wonderful questions about adoption vs shopping. 

Tami, I am going to give you the honest version instead of the cheerleading version, because you are an evaluator and you will see through the cheerleading anyway.

Our own humane education work is just getting started, so I am not going to pretend I have years of outcome data to hand you. I do not. But I can tell you why you keep hearing it does not work, and it is not because it does not work. It is a measurement problem.

Most humane education gets evaluated, when it gets evaluated at all, on attitude and knowledge in the short term. Did the kids enjoy it, did they answer questions better right after. That part the research supports reasonably well, near-term empathy and attitude shift. What almost nobody measures is the long-term behavior outcome, because that is expensive, slow, and the programs are too under-resourced to track it. So the field ends up with a pile of warm anecdotes and very little durable outcome data, and leaders read that gap as proof of failure. It is not proof of failure. It is proof of underfunded evaluation. The data did not catch up because nobody built the measurement to catch it.

That is also the way out, and it is right in your wheelhouse. Tie every humane education touch to one measurable downstream outcome you actually care about, and design the measurement in from day one instead of bolting it on later. Not did they have fun, but did this cohort show a different rate of something you can count. Build the program backward from the metric and you stop having to believe until the data catches up, because you are generating the data as you go.

On your animal control officer being barred while the vet tech is welcome, that is its own quiet tell. The officer is exactly the person who could reframe how those kids see animal services for life, and the field keeps its own messengers in separate rooms.

One concrete thing I can offer. I know someone you should talk to. Sara Kimball runs a kids program called Ralph's Responders built on the idea that teaching kids forces parent engagement, the same way fire-safety education reaches parents through their children. That parent-engagement angle is one of the more measurable efficacy paths in humane education. If you want, I will connect you two.

Thank you for responding, Brittany! I wish you were in Louisville so you could come talk to my campers!! 

I am going to have to do a deep dive on a literature search to see what I can find. Sometimes we have to just keep on believing until the data catches up I guess. 

Hey Tami,

I'm genuinely shocked to hear that there are places that say these humane education initiatives don't make a difference! Full disclosure, my rescue is an exotic pet trade rescue, not cats and dogs. That being said, we do animal education (to promote adopting not shopping, and basic welfare thoughts for the audience to keep in mind).  And I personally feel that it makes a difference. It leads to people becoming fosters, adopters, sending their friends our info, etc. We do these programs for everyone from preschool to retirement homes. 
While I have never researched the statistics of this, and am only speaking from personal experience, I would disagree with anyone, any day, that these in-person education programs do not work. From personal experience :)

I've attached a photo from a humane education class we did recently. The students spoke little english, and we had to utilize a translator. Still, they were so excited and were asking so many wonderful questions about adoption vs shopping. 

This was just beautiful intel discovered in time. One of our longterm fosters from another foster based rescue will be looking now into childrens

animal welfare education here on the Reservations in SE Montana. My impression is since years already, that the only way to change the ways is through the children and we will be looking deep into what Sara has in storage for us!

Thank you for putting this out here!

Tami, I am going to give you the honest version instead of the cheerleading version, because you are an evaluator and you will see through the cheerleading anyway.

Our own humane education work is just getting started, so I am not going to pretend I have years of outcome data to hand you. I do not. But I can tell you why you keep hearing it does not work, and it is not because it does not work. It is a measurement problem.

Most humane education gets evaluated, when it gets evaluated at all, on attitude and knowledge in the short term. Did the kids enjoy it, did they answer questions better right after. That part the research supports reasonably well, near-term empathy and attitude shift. What almost nobody measures is the long-term behavior outcome, because that is expensive, slow, and the programs are too under-resourced to track it. So the field ends up with a pile of warm anecdotes and very little durable outcome data, and leaders read that gap as proof of failure. It is not proof of failure. It is proof of underfunded evaluation. The data did not catch up because nobody built the measurement to catch it.

That is also the way out, and it is right in your wheelhouse. Tie every humane education touch to one measurable downstream outcome you actually care about, and design the measurement in from day one instead of bolting it on later. Not did they have fun, but did this cohort show a different rate of something you can count. Build the program backward from the metric and you stop having to believe until the data catches up, because you are generating the data as you go.

On your animal control officer being barred while the vet tech is welcome, that is its own quiet tell. The officer is exactly the person who could reframe how those kids see animal services for life, and the field keeps its own messengers in separate rooms.

One concrete thing I can offer. I know someone you should talk to. Sara Kimball runs a kids program called Ralph's Responders built on the idea that teaching kids forces parent engagement, the same way fire-safety education reaches parents through their children. That parent-engagement angle is one of the more measurable efficacy paths in humane education. If you want, I will connect you two.

Thank you for responding, Brittany! I wish you were in Louisville so you could come talk to my campers!! 

I am going to have to do a deep dive on a literature search to see what I can find. Sometimes we have to just keep on believing until the data catches up I guess. 

Hey Tami,

I'm genuinely shocked to hear that there are places that say these humane education initiatives don't make a difference! Full disclosure, my rescue is an exotic pet trade rescue, not cats and dogs. That being said, we do animal education (to promote adopting not shopping, and basic welfare thoughts for the audience to keep in mind).  And I personally feel that it makes a difference. It leads to people becoming fosters, adopters, sending their friends our info, etc. We do these programs for everyone from preschool to retirement homes. 
While I have never researched the statistics of this, and am only speaking from personal experience, I would disagree with anyone, any day, that these in-person education programs do not work. From personal experience :)

I've attached a photo from a humane education class we did recently. The students spoke little english, and we had to utilize a translator. Still, they were so excited and were asking so many wonderful questions about adoption vs shopping. 

Pilu, this made my day. You picked up exactly the thread I was hoping someone would.

You and I land in the same place on this. The system changes through the kids, and the adults follow them. There is even a measurable logic to it that an evaluator on this forum and I were just talking through: when you teach a child, you reach the parent through that child, the same way fire-safety education has always worked. That parent-engagement path is one of the few corners of humane education that actually shows up in outcomes.

Sara Kimball is the person you want. She built a kids program called Ralph's Responders that pairs animal care with disaster preparedness, and she wrote a children's book, Rowen and the Animal Shelter, that teaches kids what to do when they find a stray. Her materials live at lsart.org in the kids corner. I would be glad to connect you two directly so you are not piecing it together from the outside.

The work you are taking on in SE Montana is the hard version of this. Services on the Reservations are thin to nonexistent in a lot of places, the kind of gap that never shows up in a national dataset, and you know those communities in a way no outside program ever will. Whatever Sara has should be a starting point you shape to fit the communities you serve, not a script to follow. You are the right person to carry it there.

Say the word and I will make the introduction to Sara.

This was just beautiful intel discovered in time. One of our longterm fosters from another foster based rescue will be looking now into childrens

animal welfare education here on the Reservations in SE Montana. My impression is since years already, that the only way to change the ways is through the children and we will be looking deep into what Sara has in storage for us!

Thank you for putting this out here!

Tami, I am going to give you the honest version instead of the cheerleading version, because you are an evaluator and you will see through the cheerleading anyway.

Our own humane education work is just getting started, so I am not going to pretend I have years of outcome data to hand you. I do not. But I can tell you why you keep hearing it does not work, and it is not because it does not work. It is a measurement problem.

Most humane education gets evaluated, when it gets evaluated at all, on attitude and knowledge in the short term. Did the kids enjoy it, did they answer questions better right after. That part the research supports reasonably well, near-term empathy and attitude shift. What almost nobody measures is the long-term behavior outcome, because that is expensive, slow, and the programs are too under-resourced to track it. So the field ends up with a pile of warm anecdotes and very little durable outcome data, and leaders read that gap as proof of failure. It is not proof of failure. It is proof of underfunded evaluation. The data did not catch up because nobody built the measurement to catch it.

That is also the way out, and it is right in your wheelhouse. Tie every humane education touch to one measurable downstream outcome you actually care about, and design the measurement in from day one instead of bolting it on later. Not did they have fun, but did this cohort show a different rate of something you can count. Build the program backward from the metric and you stop having to believe until the data catches up, because you are generating the data as you go.

On your animal control officer being barred while the vet tech is welcome, that is its own quiet tell. The officer is exactly the person who could reframe how those kids see animal services for life, and the field keeps its own messengers in separate rooms.

One concrete thing I can offer. I know someone you should talk to. Sara Kimball runs a kids program called Ralph's Responders built on the idea that teaching kids forces parent engagement, the same way fire-safety education reaches parents through their children. That parent-engagement angle is one of the more measurable efficacy paths in humane education. If you want, I will connect you two.

Thank you for responding, Brittany! I wish you were in Louisville so you could come talk to my campers!! 

I am going to have to do a deep dive on a literature search to see what I can find. Sometimes we have to just keep on believing until the data catches up I guess. 

Hey Tami,

I'm genuinely shocked to hear that there are places that say these humane education initiatives don't make a difference! Full disclosure, my rescue is an exotic pet trade rescue, not cats and dogs. That being said, we do animal education (to promote adopting not shopping, and basic welfare thoughts for the audience to keep in mind).  And I personally feel that it makes a difference. It leads to people becoming fosters, adopters, sending their friends our info, etc. We do these programs for everyone from preschool to retirement homes. 
While I have never researched the statistics of this, and am only speaking from personal experience, I would disagree with anyone, any day, that these in-person education programs do not work. From personal experience :)

I've attached a photo from a humane education class we did recently. The students spoke little english, and we had to utilize a translator. Still, they were so excited and were asking so many wonderful questions about adoption vs shopping.