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LIS 693 Youth Community Engagement

Paws for a Cause

Seminar Paper-Youth Service Group

Mike Nelson5-11-2016

Mike Nelson LIS 693Spring 2016Seminar Paper

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

Hale Kipa 3

Paws for a Cause 5

Library Services 8

Conclusion 11

References 13

Appendix 15

1


Introduction

Hale Kipa is a nonprofit organization that has been working for over 45 years to help the at-risk

youth of Hawaii have a chance at a better life. They have locations on all the major islands of

Hawaii and strongly believe that youth have the best chance at success in life if they stay in their

community and, if possible, with their family. They work with youth of all nationalities ranging

in age from 12-21 years old. They have evolved over the years to include many different

programs including adding Paws for a Cause in 2015 as way to increase funds and help youth

with job skills.

Hale Kipa has adapted the best they can to the challenges of shrinking financial support from the

state. Stacey Evensen, Hale Kipa staff member and Paws for a Cause general director, stated

that, “they are largely funded by government contracts, specifically state contracts” (Takeya,

2015). Paws for a Cause, as a business, generates unrestricted funds for the organization to use as

they see fit without any of the constraints of public monies.

Hale Kipa has an excellent website (see appendix) with many different links and also a large

selection of videos. Many of the videos are about former youth who have received their services.

The site also includes videos of news stories about their programs, even some which are critical

of the organization, due to issues they have encountered over the years, like misbehavior from

some of their residents. I thought this was very telling about the organization that they not only

present the positives but also the challenges they have faced when trying to do their work. The

site also has many pulldown menus, how to donate, contact information and history. The link to

Paws for a Cause is under the “educational/vocational programs” tab.

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Hale Kipa

Hale Kipa, which means “the House of Friendliness” in Hawaiian, was started in 1970 by a

group of concerned citizens with the help of the police department, family court and the Junior

League as a safe haven for abused and/or runaway girls. They started with one group shelter for

adolescents in need. It was formed to provide service to fill in the gaps not served by the state.

Kwon (2013) wrote that “expansion of the welfare state increased the presence of nonprofit

organizations to fill the void left by social services and programs of care once under the state’s

direction” (p.15).

In 1979 they decided that many of their youth would be better served if placed in foster homes.

They developed the Kamala Home program and added licensed foster homes for their more

difficult youth using the help of experienced foster parents. In 1980 Hale Kipa added a Family

Counseling Unit with the goal of keeping youth in their own homes and to prevent shelter and

foster home placements. They also began follow-up studies on the youth they have sheltered that

have returned home, to see how they are doing. The rest of the 1980’s saw Hale Kipa expand its

programs to include older youth as they transitioned into the “real world” with the skills

necessary for a successful move.

The Hawaii Advocate Program (HAP) is another Hale Kipa statewide program that works to

prevent out-of-home placements of youth for children known to the juvenile justice system or at-

risk of being known to this or the welfare system. Each family is assigned a community advocate

who helps foster relationships with people and groups within the community that can provide

support. Families receive an average of 13 hours per week of advocacy service. Each advocate

tailors the services to meet the needs of the youth and their family.

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The HAP offers counseling, service referrals, assessments, development programs for youth and

parents, in school assistance, group activities and more. In partnership with HAP is the Ka’i Like

program that is more specific to youth know to the juvenile justice system. This is an intense,

individualized program that works with the youth’s strength to help them succeed and stay arrest

free.

Youth Outreach (YO!) is a program run by Hali Kipa and the Waikiki Health Center that

provides services to runaway and homeless youth on Oahu. The services provided are outreach

to youth on the streets, drop-in service for counseling, health and medical care at their “house” in

Waikiki. They help them with finding housing and guide them to social and basic services that

can address their needs.

The Transitional Living Program (TLP) works with homeless youth aged 18-21 to transition into

positive living situations. They work on goal setting, skill building, employment assistance,

referrals to services, as well as providing a place to sleep and food to eat. The program lasts six

to nine months and is set in an eight bed all male home. A four bed female home, as well as

several single bed placements are also available in scattered sites. To qualify for this program the

youth need to have a goal, be in school or working, participate in programs offered, be well

behaved and eventually help pay for some of their living costs.

The Independent Living Program Training Apartments (ILPTA) is set up to help up to four male

youth 17-19 as they transition out of the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility or who have been

in foster care and would like to participate. Admission criteria for this program are that they not

be a chronic drug or alcohol abuser or be violent, want to learn about independent living with

some support, are willing to set goals and work to achieve them based on individual assessments

4


and desire to gain independence. Skills taught are time and money management, employment,

education/vocation training, household management as well as the coping skills of living with

roommates and how to access available community resources to ensure a smooth transition to

living on their own.

Clearly Hale Kipa is working towards helping the youth of our community succeed in life as they

progress to adulthood. They have taken to heart the “five promises” Colin Powell and America’s

Promise Alliance stated as “necessary for youth development-caring adults, safe places, a healthy

start, marketable skills, and community service opportunities” (2007, p.5). This organization has

worked hard for over 45 years to help the youth of Hawaii who have had struggles have a chance

to succeed as adults.

I present all of this information about Hale Kipa to understand the extent of the parent

organization of Paws for a Cause, which is the group I will target for library services. I learned of

this business through a good friend who takes her dog there and informed me of the youth aspect

included in the mission statement. This off-shoot of Hale Kipa was formed to generate income as

well as provide a service to the local community and help youth with job skills and offer

emotional help.

Paws for a Cause

The program was modeled off a successful program out of Portland, Oregon called Virginia

Woof Dog Daycare. In an article in the local MidWeek paper program general director Stacy

Evensen said, “I saw the therapeutic value of working with animals for traumatized youths and

realized that such a program could allow the private, nonprofit Hale Kipa to generate income to

support itself” (Takeya 2015).

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Paws for a Cause also has an excellent website (see appendix) with many great pictures, pull

down menus, stories, press releases and news stories. Since this is also a business there is a

commercial side to the website as well for pet owners interested in using the service. Hale Kipa

has seen their budget from the state “drop from 11.2 million to just 7 million in 2016”, so starting

a business that could generate funds and help youth made sense (Hale Kipa website).

Paws for a Cause opened on February 16, 2015, as an off-leash day care and overnight boarding

facility for dogs in Kaneohe, on the Windward side of the island of Oahu. They were funded

with money from the Hauoli Mau Loa and the Hawaii Medical Services Association foundations.

The facility is cage free, has certified dog trainers to help dogs be their best, staff for taking dogs

for walks outside the building, as well as at-risk youth who could benefit from the program

offered to them.

The program for at-risk youth has to deal primarily with helping youth gain a variety of jobs

skills, often referred to as soft skills. These skills include customer service, communication,

teamwork, conflict resolution, reliability, punctuality, as well as inventory control and how to

care and supervise dogs. The program is four weeks in length with time spent working with the

animals as well as some time working with the staff members talking about job responsibilities.

Most of the teaching is hands on and done while working with the animals and talking with the

staff.

Youth who participate in this voluntary program have been involved with some aspect of Hale

Kipa and have been recommended by one of their career counselors for the program. They

receive training from a certified dog trainer on how to work and care for the dogs and are even

taught some basic dog training techniques. They also work with Paws for a Cause staff members

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on different aspects of employment skills including time management, responsibility,

accountability and working with other employee.

Quotes from former youth involved in the program from the Paws for a Cause website: “Dogs

don’t judge me,” “Dogs love me no matter what,” and “I can relate better to dogs than I can to

most humans”. In speaking on the phone with Canine Coordinator Megan McClouth (April 19,

2016), she said that they have had students as young at 14 and as old as 21. They have actually

hired on one of the former youth, who went through the program, or as Megan says “class”. Each

class has anywhere from two to six youth at a time.

The 40 Developmental Assets speaks of helping youth by using “youth as resource” like helping

work with the dogs and giving them the responsibility of working with a living animal. As well

as working with the “adult role models and other adult relationships” in this case meaning the

staff of Paws for a Cause (Search Institute, 1990). Hale Kipa emulates many of the ideas of the

Search Institute in its programs it offers to youth and their families.

Program director Evensen, on the organization’s website, spoke about “how holding and petting

an animal can provide comfort and health benefits to someone in need. We are hoping that these

types of programs will keep youth off the streets and out of mischief”. McCue (2007) wrote that

“coming together over a shared passion…we are all… better able to navigate the complexities of

contemporary life” (p.596). She was speaking about arts but the love of dogs is a similar passion

for many, youth included.

The primary purpose of Paws for a Cause is twofold: raise funds to be used in an unrestricted

way and to provide jobs skills to help youth to become employable citizens. They have just

celebrated their one year anniversary and have seen steady growth in their business with many

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happy customers and excellent Yelp reviews. The youth aspect of the program has changed from

the original idea of a twelve week program to a more reasonable four week program. This allows

for many more youth to be served and a more achievable standard. The goal of the program is to

help youth find and keep jobs, the website does not offer any statistics on this yet. It does,

however, offer many quotes from youth who have found the program beneficial for them both

emotionally and in building their confidence in their ability to find work. “I like working with

the dogs…”, “I like the physicality behind it (working with dogs)” and “When my dog does

something amazing, I think, I can do that too. I’ve learned so much from them” (Paws for a

Cause website).

Library Services for Paws for a Cause

Currently there is no partnership with the local library and Paws for a Cause, so getting this

started would be from the ground up and patience would be needed on both sides to assure its

success. One interesting discovery I learned from talking to Megan is that before they serve

lunch to the dogs, in order to calm them down after a pre-lunch walk, is to read aloud to the

dogs! So finding good books to donate to the program for the staff to read to the dogs could be a

good first step, any book will do, the dogs just like to hear a calm voice reading.

There are many different ways the library, specifically the local Kaneohe branch of the state

public library system, can support Paws for a Cause. Outreach would be an excellent service that

the local library could provide to Paws for a Cause. At the start of each four week session, a

librarian could come and visit with the youth participating in the program and introduce

themselves and the local library. Having information about hours of operation and how to get

there would be helpful (Booth & Jensen, 2014). Bus routes and schedules from the Paws for a

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Cause location as well as other local bus service areas would be of benefit to the youth and serve

as an additional invitation, maybe even free bus passes could be obtained for them.

The visiting librarian could talk about the different types of books available including dog books,

resume books, employment seeker books, maybe even doing a short book talk or two. They

could also speak about the different employment websites available that could be used from their

own computer or the computers at the library. A website list and book list could be provided at

the time of the visit as well as library card applications, if needed.

The main purpose of the visit would be to let the youth know that they are invited and welcome

to the library and that there is much for them there. Many teenagers feel that library staff treat

them rudely and they would be more likely to visit if they felt welcome Agosto & Hughes-

Hassell, 2005). This is also a great time to network with the staff of Paws for a Cause to promote

the library to them and to the other facets of Hale Kipa.

Book displays in the library that involve dogs is also an excellent way to provide support. A

poster board display with pictures of some these books could also be placed at Paws for a Cause

for youth and customers to see, with the library name prominently displayed. These could be

non-fiction books about caring for dogs, the different breeds, dog competitions, picture books,

and these could be at many different reading levels so that all kids and adults visiting the library

could benefit. Agosto & Hughes-Hassell (2005) in their interviews with youth recorded that

“library book collections held little attraction for them…” (p.161). Additional book displays

could have fiction books involving dogs and their relationships with humans. This could include

White Fang by Jack London, Ribsy by Beverly Cleary, and Night of the Howling Dogs by

Graham Salisbury among many others, again at all different reading levels.

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Many people love dogs, so having a dog display up all year, as long as books were rotated and

the displays were moved to different areas of the library does not seem unreasonable. I would

also favor, as I am a cat lover, adding other pet books as part of the displays to not show any pet

preference to the patrons. This would be good for the participants of Paws for a Cause to learn

more about dogs and would also encourage reading with subject matter that is important to them.

When considering collection management, there are many books and magazines that feature

dogs, so it will be important to make sure the Kaneohe library has an adequate number of those

titles to satisfy the youth from the program. The other aspect of Paws for a Cause is job skills, so

it is also important when considering titles to have in the library resume writing and interview

preparation books as well as employment seeking books for first time job seekers. These books

will benefit the entire youth community as well as possibly migrant community members trying

to find work in Hawaii.

Another opportunity to work with the youth of Paws for a Cause would be an event held at the

library that was all things dogs and jobs. This event could happen every quarter with the last

three groups of youth participating with some of the Paws for a Cause staff members as well.

There would be a library tour, a brief power point highlighting some of the databases for

employment and educational resources, a quick browse through some employment/resume/job

websites as well as some web based dog resources (all with a hand out for further reference).

The event would include snacks and drinks, maybe some sort of dog based them to those.

Additional youth who are involved with Hale Kipa could also be invited, through the

recommendation of the Hale Kipa staff. Once again this would be a good moment to build a

strong bond with the youth as well as the adults involved. As the Booth & Jensen (2014) state,

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“public libraries are community spaces” (p. 3) and this helps the youth and the staff members

realize that. Community based programs can provide enrichment and rewarding experiences and

having events at the library that brings youth from the community in will only strengthen that

bond (Kwon, 2013).

Hale Kipa already has a few “success story” videos on its website and Paws for a Cause has

some testimonials from the youth it has served which is great. I believe that the library could

help Paws for a Cause put together some digital storytelling videos, similar to what Rolon-Dow

(2007) has done to help showcase the program even more. This production could easily done in

collaboration with the local Windward Community College or University of Hawaii at Manoa

students interested in video production work. This would be a potentially great community

project as well as a boost to the Paws for a Cause program and for the youth featured by

encouraging their success.

These are just a few of the initial ways that the library could become involved with Paws for a

Cause. The key is to make sure that all programs are sustainable and that both sides, the library

and Paws for a Cause, find it worthwhile and are willing to put forth the effort to give the

programs their best chance at success. Each program will need to be evaluated frequently and

adjusted if necessary. Other programs can be added and current programs can be eliminated if

they are not effective both sides should enjoy a benefit to all programs implemented.

Conclusion

Pause for a Cause is a very small operation with a maximum capacity of 25 dogs (depending on

size) and service to a maximum of six youth at one time, but they are the perfect place for the

library to get its foot in the door of this branch of a large nonprofit. As a new librarian my first

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outreach opportunity will be to start with a small operation and grow from there, if appropriate.

Once I am the director of the entire library system, then I can tackle the idea of collaborating

with all the aspects of Hale Kipa, but for now Paws for a Cause is a great start.

Since they have not yet had a partnership with the library system, the programing needs to be

well thought out and then have excellent follow through. A successful relationship with Paws for

a Cause can lay the ground work for expansion into Hale Kipa. The issue with any kind of

outreach is that you need to have the right people to implement the outreach. You cannot simply

have a script and force library employees to “do” the program, the effort needs to be genuine;

trained and enthusiastic library volunteers may be able to help.

Hale Kipa has done years of excellent work with youth by providing them with shelter and basic

care. They have also worked hard to help solve some of the issues that lead to youth becoming

homeless, like providing in home counseling and guide foster placements. Funding will always

be a concern and ventures like Paws for a Cause, while still helping at-risk youth, is also able to

raise unrestricted funds to be put to good use.

Paws for a Cause provides a much needed service for the general public while also educating that

same public about the wonderful programs they and Hale Kipa operate. This may lead to more

participation from the customers of Paws for a Cause in the programs offered, with time and/or

money to support them. The population of Hawaii are lucky to have such a dedicated

organization like Hale Kipa in place that works tirelessly to help the at-risk youth of our islands.

Paws for a Cause is another in a long line of wonderful programs that is doing its part to make

Hawaii a better place for all of us.

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References

Agosto, D. E., & Hughes-Hassell, S. (2005). People, places, and questions: An investigation of

the everyday life information-seeking behaviors of urban young adults. Library &

information science research, 27(2), 141-163.

America’s Promise Alliance (2007). The story of America’s promise. Washington, DC:

America’s Promise Alliance.

Booth, H & Jensen, K. (Eds.) (2014). The whole library handbook: Teen Services. Chicago, IL:

ALA.

Hale Kipa website, https://www.halekipa.org/

Kwon, S. (2013). Uncivil Youth: Race, Activism and Affirmative Governmentality. Durham, NC:

Duke University Press.

McClouth, M. (2016, April 19). Interviewed by M. Nelson.

McCue, F. (2007). The arts and civic space: An experiment in community education. Teachers

College Record, 109(3), 590 – 602.

Paws for a Cause website, https://pawsforacause.halekipa.org/

Rolon-Dow, R. (2011). Race(ing) Stories: Digital Storytelling as a Tool for Critical Race

Scholarship. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 14(2), 159-173.

Search Institute (1990). Minneapolis, MN.

http://www.search-institute.org/research/developmental-assets

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http://www.search-institute.org/research/developmental-assets

https://pawsforacause.halekipa.org/

https://www.halekipa.org/


Takeya, P. (2015, March 18). Dog care center as job training. MidWeek, pp. A1, A4.

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Appendix 1

Hale Kipa Website

Paws for a Cause Website

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