Fight Mental Illness Thursday - Service Dogs for Injured Soldiers

NAMI Friends,

Every second Thursday of the month is “Fight Mental Illness” Thursday. After fighting for children’s crisis services at the state-level last month, this month we’re moving to the federal level and fighting so soldiers with severe post-traumatic stress and/or mild traumatic brain injuries can access service dogs. Specifically, we’re asking supporters to sign this web petition, http://www.change.org/petitions/secretary-of-the-army-john-mchugh-change-the-army-s-restrictive-policy-on-service-dogs, asking the Secretary of the Army to change the Army’s service dog policy to make it clear that: (1) service dogs are not a treatment of last resort, (2) soldiers with service dogs will have housing accommodations where they can use their service dog, and (3) that the service dog accreditation standard be broadened to include other reputable service dog training organizations.

If you don’t feel comfortable signing a web petition, you can all the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army at 703-545-0672 and ask to leave a message requesting that the Secretary of the Army change the policy.  The Secretary of the Army probably doesn’t get a lot of call in requests, so you’ll have to be patient with the staff.

Here's an article from the Billings Gazette that describes why we're asking you to get involved in this fight. http://billingsgazette.com/article_ba319e78-23f6-5971-a4f1-c560b58c4cf5.html

Thanks for your help!

Matt

Matt Kuntz

Executive Director

NAMI Montana