Community Partners
Our community partners are there for people facing unimaginable moments — the homeless 14-year-old planning suicide, the parents waiting to learn if their child has been found alive, or a family seeking safety from domestic violence.
We can help. Our crisis canines can connect with people in crisis – even when no human can – and provide a safe haven.
With every deployment, our partners trust us to deliver the highest standards of care, compassion, confidentiality, and professionalism. One way we work hard to earn that trust is to welcome their requests to support their prevention, outreach, readiness and resilience building efforts.
Responders
We work alongside our responder partners who provide critical services in the aftermath of crisis or disaster. These responders support individuals in crisis, survivors, and their families, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Among others, they include:
- 911 Emergency dispatch, fire, rescue, public safety, search & rescue, emergency management.
- Mental health crisis teams, hospitals and trauma centers, chaplains.
- Crisis management teams for schools, businesses, and places of worship.
- Victims’ advocates, courts, detention facilities.
In addition, when critical incidents impact the responders themselves, NATIONAL provides the confidential strategic support and healthy coping methods that responders trust. This allows them to continue serving their communities in the difficult professions they’ve chosen.
Nonprofits
Humanitarian disaster relief comes from many nonprofit organizations in our communities. These volunteer-powered nonprofits provide humanitarian aid, medical care, and emergency shelter to meet the urgent needs of survivors.
Our crisis response canine teams provide compassionate support to those receiving assistance, and respite for the volunteers who help them. A few of the nonprofits we partner with include:
- The American Red Cross
- The Medical Reserve Corps
- Salvation Army
- Catholic Charities
- Jewish Community Services
- International Critical Incident Stress Foundation (ICISF)
- United Way
- National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters(NVOAD)
We also partner with school districts, places of worship, fellowship halls, civic clubs, health departments and CERT Teams (civilian emergency response teams).
Federal Agencies
When crisis and disaster cross state lines, or tragedy strikes public transportation, air travel or cruise lines, NATIONAL Crisis Response Canines deploys on authorization from federal agencies such as FEMA, Homeland Security, Department of Justice, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSC), Small Business Administration (SBA), the FBI and others.
Community Coalitions
Response is a collaborative, coordinated effort across many sectors and jurisdictions. Agencies sharing a common mission to provide critical aid are routinely involved with community coalitions. We respond to requests from community coalitions to support their prevention, readiness, outreach and resilience efforts.
We train alongside their personnel in mass casualty drills and preparedness exercises. Depending on the drill plan’s objectives, our canine teams may participate as crisis responders, or, role play as survivors with service dogs in order to provide safety training for other response personnel.
These continuous, collaborative efforts provide each coalition member with valuable insights into the needs of our communities, the resources available, and the gaps to be addressed when crisis strikes. As members of our community coalitions, we’re prepared to work together to deliver a coordinated, safe and effective response.
Logistics & Technology Partners
Delivering on our mission would not be possible without the extraordinary support of our technology and logistics partners. Here are a few examples: Salesforce.org provides the cloud-based technology we need to manage all aspects of our deployments, training and communications in a secure encrypted environment. TechSoup.org connects us with technology partners and technology training. Sterling Verified Volunteers gives us a simple, fast, cost-effective way to verify criminal history background clearances. Signal, a messaging app offering top-tier privacy through default end-to-end encryption for text, calls, and media.