The DuMond Conservancy has
for the past three years offered a supplementary program that
allows the Trainable Mentally Handicapped (TMH) students to
go out into the community and practice functional living and
workplace skills. Students assist in all sorts of activities
ranging from preparing primate meals and maintaining cages
to caring for and learning about different species and individual
monkeys living at the Conservancy and the adjacent zoological
park (Monkey Jungle). The majority of the monkeys are Owl Monkeys
that live in small family groups and several families have
one family member who is handicapped in some way.
We feel that partnering these TMH interns with a small number
of handicapped monkeys, many who are elderly and have special
needs, is a powerful tool to capitalize on the inspiration
the handicapped monkeys have been to our organization in
general and the motivation that we feel they can be specifically
to these TMH students in particular. The use of animal therapy
to help mentally handicapped students improve their learning
abilities has won increasing acceptance among psychologists
in recent years, most notably the use of dolphins with autistic
children.
In addition, we offer the TMH interns an opportunity to
stay connected to the community, through staying in contact
with their friends from school and organizing outings to
community events - high school football games being easily the
most popular. All students and their families are invited
to our annual Christmas party and the families also have
an open invitation to visit the Conservancy and Monkey Jungle
(as our guests). We also seek to widen the social networks
of the TMH students by encouraging interactions with our
volunteers and staff members at the zoological park.
