Officer Hannah Skibba & K9 Honey: Healing Hearts with Indiana University's Therapy K-9 Program
Feb 18, 2024
Kevin Shook
Ever wondered about the paws behind the badge? This episode, we unwrap the touching journey of Officer Hannah Skiba and her therapy K-9, Honey, who are making waves at Indiana University Police Department. Officer Skibba, who transitioned from education to law enforcement, paints a vivid picture of how her four-legged partner has been a beacon of mental health support for students and faculty across nine campuses. Our conversation explores the roots of IU's therapy K-9 program, the specialized training that shapes these canine heroes, and the touching moments Honey has shared in soothing troubled souls.
As we listen to tales of Honey's rescue background and rigorous preparation with Paws and Stripes, where even inmates contribute to the noble cause, the depth of this partnership truly comes to life. The power of community support is palpable in our heartfelt appreciation for the Richmond community's embrace of our mission. Officer Skibba's and Honey's two-hour journey to share their story with us is a testament to their dedication and a shining example of the kind of relentless spirit that uplifts and inspires us all. Join us as we celebrate the profound impact of a therapy K-9 team in stitching together the fabric of compassion within our community.
Ever wondered about the paws behind the badge? This episode, we unwrap the touching journey of Officer Hannah Skiba and her therapy K-9, Honey, who are making waves at Indiana University Police Department. Officer Skibba, who transitioned from education to law enforcement, paints a vivid picture of how her four-legged partner has been a beacon of mental health support for students and faculty across nine campuses. Our conversation explores the roots of IU's therapy K-9 program, the specialized training that shapes these canine heroes, and the touching moments Honey has shared in soothing troubled souls.
As we listen to tales of Honey's rescue background and rigorous preparation with Paws and Stripes, where even inmates contribute to the noble cause, the depth of this partnership truly comes to life. The power of community support is palpable in our heartfelt appreciation for the Richmond community's embrace of our mission. Officer Skibba's and Honey's two-hour journey to share their story with us is a testament to their dedication and a shining example of the kind of relentless spirit that uplifts and inspires us all. Join us as we celebrate the profound impact of a therapy K-9 team in stitching together the fabric of compassion within our community.
Welcome back to another episode of our community. I'm your host, local realtor, alfredo Diamond. We have an amazing show lined up for you today. We have a couple of special guests in the building today Indiana University Police Department's Therapy to K-19. That's a mouthful. Officer Hannah Skiba, welcome, thank you, and her partner, honey, welcome today. Officer Skiba, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:
So I'm an officer with the Indiana University Police Department. My first role is I'm a public information officer and in September my new title that got added was Therapy K-9 Handler. So I work in both capacities for Indiana University and I work across the state, not just on our Bloomington campus but for all nine campuses across the state of Indiana.
Speaker 1:
How did this come about? I mean, what made you decide on the role you have now? I mean how that goes.
Speaker 2:
So I mean at IU we're always kind of looking for what we can do better, what we can do to keep up with our law enforcement partners, you know, within the Big 10, kind of watching what they're doing to make sure that we're serving our community the best way we possibly can. One thing we saw is that departments were adding therapy canines to their departments and saw great success with them. So I put together a proposal and showed kind of the benefits that it could serve on our campuses and with a little convincing we ended up with therapy canine honey.
Speaker 1:
Wow, let's talk about it for a little bit. So what? Just don't go right into it? So what are some of the benefits of having a canine therapy dog? Talking about sharing, about sharing that with us.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean mental health on college campuses are at an all time high. Our students are struggling, our faculty and staff are really struggling. I think a lot of that is because of the pandemic kind of coming off of that. But we knew we have to do something more to support them, and so most people love dogs and animal assisted therapy has a ton of research to back it up that shows how powerful having an animal on scene can be so she can help reduce stress and anxiety and really help open up communication channels with somebody that we're trying to help.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so we'll back up a second. So tell us about where you're from and how you got to re-earn things like that later.
Speaker 2:
So I originally grew up in Wisconsin, did my undergrad at the University of Wisconsin, oshkosh, in education Okay, found out that teaching was not for me, went to grad school at Ball State, which is what brought me to Indiana and from there I really found my passion for law enforcement, specifically in the university setting, so I got hired on at IU in 2019. So we're about five years four and a half years, five years in. I love IU, I love our community and it's been a super fulfilling career so far. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else, especially now that I have honey.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, are there any other? Like certifications you have to have along with your education to you know? You know work with a K9 and therapy. I mean, how does that look? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:
So honey and I had to do a 40 hour school. We went to Florida Brevard County, florida to do her certification. So every K9 teams training looks a little bit different. We have two other bomb dogs at IU PD and so their training looks different than mine. So we did 40 hours of training together. But honey did all the hard work before I got her. She did about eight weeks of training. So the one week we did together was really training me how to be the best handler for her.
Speaker 1:
And this is at the Paul's and Stripes program.
Speaker 2:
Correct. So Paul's and Stripes College in Brevard County, Florida really unique program. We use them for a couple of different reasons, the first being is that they rescue all of their dogs. So honey was a rescue from a local shelter. She got to find a forever home with us. Another reason is that they use inmates at their local jail to help train the dogs.
Speaker 1:
I read that last night. I thought that was pretty, it's an incredible program.
Speaker 2:
We got to meet the inmates who are working with these dogs, who taught her everything that she knew up until me getting there. So it was really powerful to see that they're learning job skills while they're serving out their sentence and then taking those skills with them once they're released.
Speaker 1:
So where and how did you meet honey? How did that come about?
Speaker 2:
So there was a matching process, kind of like speed dating, almost. So Brevard County did a phone conversation with me, you know, asked me about myself, my energy level, kind of what we would be using our therapy dog for, and from there they matched me with honey. They were like this is going to be the best fit for your campus community. And they got it right, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:
So what exactly does honey do? Can you share that with me?
Speaker 2:
Sure. So every day is kind of different for her, just like it is for any police officer. So some days we're out at community events meeting new people. Other days we're at our CAPS office, so our counseling and psychological services, maybe meeting with group therapy. Some days we're responding to calls. So if there's an officer on scene that thinks that therapy dog could be helpful to help, you know, de-escalate whatever call they're on, we join them on scene. So every day is a little bit different for us.
Speaker 1:
So what type of training is an officer that's calling in have to have to recognize that honey is needed here in the situation?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I go through kind of a briefing with our officers. I did that when we first got back of like winter appropriate times to call honey to a scene. It's not always appropriate to have a dog on scene, but anytime we have, like a victim or a witness of a crime, it was really an emotional distress. They can reach out to that person or through conversation and say, hey, would it be helpful to have our therapy canine team here to help support you? And from there we really let that decision be made by whoever we're helping. We never want to escalate a situation by having a dog on scene. Not everybody is a dog person and we know that, yeah, but oftentimes it's super helpful.
Speaker 1:
You're saying way and right to a couple things. I'm kind of jumping around a little bit, but I'll come back to some things more about the connection with IU and whatnot. But so can you walk? Can you kind of walk me through the process? So what's a typical situation and then how does honey respond? And can you walk us through that and try and get a visual?
Speaker 2:
Sure I can. One example that we've had. So we have a very popular campus down in the Bloomington campus, so a ton of pedestrians all over the place and unfortunately there are instances where pedestrians will get struck by vehicles. So one thing we had this fall semester a driver was driving, just simply did not see a pedestrian in the roadway and struck the pedestrian. So honey and I were called to scene, not for the person who was actually struck but for the driver of the vehicle who was very shaken up about the situation, absolutely. So after our officers kind of completed, you know, their investigation, got everything kind of calmed down. She was able to help the driver get back to a state where they could safely drive their vehicle from the scene. She just interacted with them, got some puppy love, got some honey love and she was able to calm down enough to go on with her day.
Speaker 1:
Wow, it's amazing. So what is the connection with you know, so you work at IU but honey, and so what is the connection with them implementing in this program? What is your motive, other than what other universities are doing? How does it kind of fit in with IU?
Speaker 2:
IU. As you know, a broad system has been very supportive of our new role. We've been able to introduce her to multiple offices across the campus and I think that's important to know is we're not just a resource for our police department, we're a resource for any university official across the system. So if we have a counselor that you know they think a therapy doc could be helpful with the clients that they're working with, we can be called in If somebody out in the communities thinks that they could use honey. So we've been working with our local prosecutor's office quite a bit and we actually just supported a 10 year old victim last week who was preparing for a deposition, stated that she may be interested in having a therapy dog with her through that process, and we were able to assist them too. So it's not just for us and our police department, it's so much bigger.
Speaker 1:
So you provide and service this for the entire community, not just university. Wow. So what kind of challenges are you faced with? Are you experiencing any situations where you need help or support? What kind of challenges do you or do you have, if any?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, there are a few challenges that we've seen. So far. It's just me and her, so that's a challenge in and of itself. With my role as the public information officer, I work statewide, so I do have the freedom to be traveling quite a bit, but we can't be everywhere all the time. So we've kind of been exploring some different channels and how we can add another therapy dog to our team, because we've seen it be so successful that we want to provide those resources to all of our campuses. So we serve on call for our Bloomington campus just because that's the most realistic for us, but in order to be on call for all of the other campuses across the state, we have to add more dogs. So that's definitely one of our biggest hurdles right now.
Speaker 1:
How's that working for you? Are you in challenges with that in itself, or so far people have been supportive.
Speaker 2:
You know reaching out to community partners and kind of explaining to them what they do. They see the need, they see honey, they meet her. Just a few interactions she proves herself and why she's so beneficial. But no, our community has been super supportive, especially the Richmond community. I cannot thank them enough for all that they've done to support us so far. So as we keep growing, I'm just going to keep reaching out to people and share our story and share why we need to add some little siblings for honey.
Speaker 1:
You can leave me to the next question. I'm jumping around a little bit, but so if someone in our community, after seeing this podcast or hearing your story, wanted to help contribute to you know, bringing in another canine, another officer, how would they go about donating or contributing to your calls?
Speaker 2:
So all of our donations go through the IU Foundation. So if you visit the IU Foundation website and search IU PD canine unit, you can directly donate and support the next therapy dog for the IU PD.
Speaker 1:
There you go Okay. So, Officer Hannah Skibba, could you share another experience that you've had from your involvement in the community where honey Officer Honey was involved?
Speaker 2:
So a lot of the stuff we do is very informal actually. So as we're out in the community, meeting new folks, meeting new students, it's simply like as impactful as somebody who normally wouldn't come up to a police officer is now coming up to honey, interacting with her, wanting to learn about her. And they don't even see me in my uniform, which is beautiful. That's exactly what we want. We're building a connection over a dog, something that we have in common, instead of seeing the differences. So they're talking to honey, I'm talking about our program and we're building a trusting relationship in the process. So it's not always responding to a scene or something super structured. It's the everyday, informal connections that we're making with people that are going a long way.
Speaker 1:
Wow, officer Skibba, are there any upcoming events, projects or calls within the community that you want to particularly, that you're particularly excited about or want to highlight where you may be involved or I'll surrounding maybe there too?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so one thing I mentioned briefly was the support that we're doing with our local prosecutor's office and something that we're really excited about being able to support children in our community, something that you normally wouldn't think from a university police department where we're generally dealing with adults, but we've been able to partner with them and so we have some court trials coming up, some depositions, in ways that we're going to support our children in our community. List of events. I try to keep our social media pretty updated with where we're going to be. So IUPD, K9Honey on Facebook and Instagram and freshly on TikTok, actually try to keep people updated on where we're going to be this week Alone. We're on four different campuses so we're traveling quite a bit.
Speaker 1:
Wow, you're busy, I'm busy. Yeah, she's busy.
Speaker 2:
She's a rock star, though she keeps up.
Speaker 1:
And my dog Tig. He's going to be so jealous today.
Speaker 2:
I just, I just oh, you're going to be in trouble when you get home, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:
He's something else. So is there anyone that you would like to give a shout out? You know family member, staff member, team member that you'd like to give a shout out to today.
Speaker 2:
Oh man, I mean there's a couple of people that have been super supportive, One just my administration at IUPD and really kind of believing in this mission and supporting us and kind of pushing me to grow the program into whatever I think is best for our community. So just the autonomy to be able to do that and work for an agency that supports that has been absolutely amazing. Justin Scheiben and the team at BNF Plastics here in Richmond has been a huge supporter so far and I'm super grateful for their partnership and helping grow our program.
Speaker 1:
Shout out Justin. Yeah, shout out Justin.
Speaker 2:
No, our Richmond community has been amazing and as we continue to spread our word and spread our mission, I'm just super thankful for everybody that kind of believes in what we're doing and can see the impact that it has.
Speaker 1:
Officer Skib has been a pleasure having here. I can't thank you enough for making a two hour drive to come join us today. I wish you and Honey nothing but continued success and keep doing what you're doing. It's a beautiful thing, so I thank you.
