The History of Heartland Therapeutic Programs
The History of Heartland Therapeutic Programs
Our nonprofit, Heartland Therapeutic Programs, started on a ranch, but it was actually founded by Dr. Rick Rader, Director of Habilitation of the Orange Grove Center in Chattanooga, TN and internationally known for his work in mental health sitting on international committees; Bobbie Allison-Standefer, and others who wanted to investigate "outside the box thinking" in therapies to get the greatest outcomes with developmentally, emotionally, or mentally disabled people. We started programming for developmentally disabled children and abused children with hippo therapy and therapeutic riding, as well as activities overseen and developed by special education teachers at summer camps, and a camp for homeless girls 10-15 years of age to provide life skills and self-confidence with team building activities and a fun day at Elea Blake Cosmetics to learn hygiene, skin care and use of make up; and lunch at the Walden Club to practice learned life/social skills with a presentation by a Chattanooga State representative on how to apply for college aide. We did therapeutic gardening, had vocational training in Ranch and Stable Management for the DD population, and we had field trip activities for inner city children from the Bethlehem Center servicing the inner city in Chattanooga.
Debbie and Rick Honeycutt (pitching coach for the LA Dodgers) were instrumental to the beginning with making available their 100 acre ranch with covered arena and everything on that ranch was made available to the volunteer staff. Heartland owes its beginning to their generosity.
Heartland pursued interns and expertise from area colleges such as UTC, Southern Adventist University and Covenant College. They were excited to get their students hands-on experience with the population Heartland served.
An LCSW from the VA approached Heartland about doing programming for veterans with PTSD. We did start in that direction with equine assisted therapeutic riding and psychotherapy utilizing NAHRA (now PATH, INT) and EAGALA certified training and concepts. We have introduced that programming to other ranches such as Eagles Rest Ranch in Flintstone, GA who we give financial support to and now in the form of scholarships to those who need help going to camp. They also have adopted the SpiritHorse concept and are under that national nonprofit umbrella.
Heartland also helped Command Sergeant Major (R) Samuel Rhodes (author of 2 books on PTSD) to start Warrior Outreach, Inc. and Warrior Outreach Ranch near Fort Benning, GA, which does these programs for a large number of returning soldiers and their families having problems with re-entry and other veterans and widows who need help. Warrior Outreach started as a Heartland program, but now is a partner 501c3 and we support them financially and with volunteer hours. Sam is from Ringgold, GA and wants to help soldiers and veterans in the NW Georgia area as well. We are researching different therapeutic activities through Warrior Outreach.
Heartland now partners and supports programs for inner city and high at-risk and abused children through Girls Inc., Dade County’s ProtectHer Shelter for women and children escaping from domestic violence, and the North Georgia Crisis Center servicing 4 counties in NW Georgia.
Heartland is dedicated to innovative research and therapies today, and we are seeing exciting results with dynamic professionals. One of these therapies was started in 2009 in Nashville by singer/songwriters who work with stars like Keith Urban, Charlie Daniels, Tina Turner and many others.
Operation Song is made up of successful professionals in the music business dedicated to finding help for our veterans of combat who suffer mentally, emotionally and physically. Their work at the VA Hospital in Murfreesboro, TN, and other VA venues has been touted by the veterans they have helped. Heartland has had a very successful event with them in Chattanooga, TN at a weekend retreat that Heartland held and sponsored through Heartland’s contact with the local VA. Stemming from that were other weekend retreats by Operation Song and a dream of taking the 10 week sessions to all areas in need of alternative therapies offering songwriting with Nashville songwriters and music therapists.
Heartland Therapeutic Programs went to work to bring them and other alternative therapies to all veterans in the region by developing a plan for a Regional Veterans Whole Health Center. Interim space needed to be acquired in order to get therapies started as soon as possible. The door had been opened for the VA to partner with outside organizations to bring much needed help to our combat veterans suffering from PTSD and/or TBI (traumatic brain injury) to restore, maintain, and improve the physical, emotional, psychological, and neurologic functioning of wounded active-duty service members and veterans. Erlanger Medical Center has provided the space and been a generous host. The City of Chattanooga has offered to sponsor a fund raiser on Veterans Day 2015 by donating Memorial Auditorium for a concert partnering with the symphony.
Heartland Therapeutic Programs is bringing Operation Song to our region as part of our warrior outreach to veterans and returning soldiers and/or family members having problems after being in combat. We are working with Care Managers, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, Social Work Service, Chattanooga Outpatient Clinic and Vet Center. The steering committee for this exciting new venture in this region is Heartland Board Members; Tina Haynes, Operation Song and music therapist; Don Goodman and Bob Regan, Grammy nominated songwriters and winners of other recognitions in the music industry with songs working with Blake Shelton, Alabama, Keith Urban, and others; John Taylor, Viet Nam veteran and over Tootsie’s singer/songwriter development of young artists coming to Nashville and brother to the owner of the famous Tootsies in Nashville who develops hundreds of new singers annually; Janice Colby, popular DJ at CAT Country 95.3 and Brewer Broadcasting; and Sylvia Wygoda, grant writer and retired from government service in the state of Georgia, who is dedicated to service especially to our veterans (a little history on Sylvia's father, Hermann Wygoda, WWII hero: Unique among Holocaust memoirs, In the Shadow of the Swastika, now in paperback, celebrates the memory of a man who received decorations from three Western powers and who, years later, was honored posthumously by the Italian city he helped to liberate. Throughout the years of the Holocaust, Hermann Wygoda lived a life of narrow escapes, daring masquerades, and battles that almost defy reason.)
There are 15,000 returning soldiers and veterans serviced in this region for mental health with a couple of hundred going through the local VA Clinic daily. The need is great and when government funds are limited, Heartland’s original approach of a public/private/social venture which was the principle Heartland was founded on is needed.
Heartland’s newest research venture with developmental disabilities and brain injury is partnering with Orange Grove and the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga on a new research project, Heartland Arcade at Orange Grove, which utilizes adapted arcade games. The arcade is an ingenious concept of using adapted arcade games employing a multisensory experience using lighting effects, color, sounds, music and exercising hand/eye co-ordination developed by Dr. Rick Rader, a founder of Heartland Programs. These games will deliver stimuli to various senses which hopefully increase improvement in all aspects of development.
The Heartland Therapeutic Programs Board of Directors invites you to get acquainted with our innovative research and programs. We support financially all that we do through donations, grants, and our charity bingo at American Legion Post 214 on Thursday and Saturday evenings near Ft. Oglethorpe, GA.
If you feel led to be one of our partners we appreciate all donations which are tax deductible. We will make sure you get the proper recognition and access to check out any of our programs.
Thank you in advance for any help you give us.
Our nonprofit, Heartland Therapeutic Programs, started on a ranch, but it was actually founded by Dr. Rick Rader, Director of Habilitation of the Orange Grove Center in Chattanooga, TN and internationally known for his work in mental health sitting on international committees; Bobbie Allison-Standefer, and others who wanted to investigate "outside the box thinking" in therapies to get the greatest outcomes with developmentally, emotionally, or mentally disabled people. We started programming for developmentally disabled children and abused children with hippo therapy and therapeutic riding, as well as activities overseen and developed by special education teachers at summer camps, and a camp for homeless girls 10-15 years of age to provide life skills and self-confidence with team building activities and a fun day at Elea Blake Cosmetics to learn hygiene, skin care and use of make up; and lunch at the Walden Club to practice learned life/social skills with a presentation by a Chattanooga State representative on how to apply for college aide. We did therapeutic gardening, had vocational training in Ranch and Stable Management for the DD population, and we had field trip activities for inner city children from the Bethlehem Center servicing the inner city in Chattanooga.
Debbie and Rick Honeycutt (pitching coach for the LA Dodgers) were instrumental to the beginning with making available their 100 acre ranch with covered arena and everything on that ranch was made available to the volunteer staff. Heartland owes its beginning to their generosity.
Heartland pursued interns and expertise from area colleges such as UTC, Southern Adventist University and Covenant College. They were excited to get their students hands-on experience with the population Heartland served.
An LCSW from the VA approached Heartland about doing programming for veterans with PTSD. We did start in that direction with equine assisted therapeutic riding and psychotherapy utilizing NAHRA (now PATH, INT) and EAGALA certified training and concepts. We have introduced that programming to other ranches such as Eagles Rest Ranch in Flintstone, GA who we give financial support to and now in the form of scholarships to those who need help going to camp. They also have adopted the SpiritHorse concept and are under that national nonprofit umbrella.
Heartland also helped Command Sergeant Major (R) Samuel Rhodes (author of 2 books on PTSD) to start Warrior Outreach, Inc. and Warrior Outreach Ranch near Fort Benning, GA, which does these programs for a large number of returning soldiers and their families having problems with re-entry and other veterans and widows who need help. Warrior Outreach started as a Heartland program, but now is a partner 501c3 and we support them financially and with volunteer hours. Sam is from Ringgold, GA and wants to help soldiers and veterans in the NW Georgia area as well. We are researching different therapeutic activities through Warrior Outreach.
Heartland now partners and supports programs for inner city and high at-risk and abused children through Girls Inc., Dade County’s ProtectHer Shelter for women and children escaping from domestic violence, and the North Georgia Crisis Center servicing 4 counties in NW Georgia.
Heartland is dedicated to innovative research and therapies today, and we are seeing exciting results with dynamic professionals. One of these therapies was started in 2009 in Nashville by singer/songwriters who work with stars like Keith Urban, Charlie Daniels, Tina Turner and many others.
Operation Song is made up of successful professionals in the music business dedicated to finding help for our veterans of combat who suffer mentally, emotionally and physically. Their work at the VA Hospital in Murfreesboro, TN, and other VA venues has been touted by the veterans they have helped. Heartland has had a very successful event with them in Chattanooga, TN at a weekend retreat that Heartland held and sponsored through Heartland’s contact with the local VA. Stemming from that were other weekend retreats by Operation Song and a dream of taking the 10 week sessions to all areas in need of alternative therapies offering songwriting with Nashville songwriters and music therapists.
Heartland Therapeutic Programs went to work to bring them and other alternative therapies to all veterans in the region by developing a plan for a Regional Veterans Whole Health Center. Interim space needed to be acquired in order to get therapies started as soon as possible. The door had been opened for the VA to partner with outside organizations to bring much needed help to our combat veterans suffering from PTSD and/or TBI (traumatic brain injury) to restore, maintain, and improve the physical, emotional, psychological, and neurologic functioning of wounded active-duty service members and veterans. Erlanger Medical Center has provided the space and been a generous host. The City of Chattanooga has offered to sponsor a fund raiser on Veterans Day 2015 by donating Memorial Auditorium for a concert partnering with the symphony.
Heartland Therapeutic Programs is bringing Operation Song to our region as part of our warrior outreach to veterans and returning soldiers and/or family members having problems after being in combat. We are working with Care Managers, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, Social Work Service, Chattanooga Outpatient Clinic and Vet Center. The steering committee for this exciting new venture in this region is Heartland Board Members; Tina Haynes, Operation Song and music therapist; Don Goodman and Bob Regan, Grammy nominated songwriters and winners of other recognitions in the music industry with songs working with Blake Shelton, Alabama, Keith Urban, and others; John Taylor, Viet Nam veteran and over Tootsie’s singer/songwriter development of young artists coming to Nashville and brother to the owner of the famous Tootsies in Nashville who develops hundreds of new singers annually; Janice Colby, popular DJ at CAT Country 95.3 and Brewer Broadcasting; and Sylvia Wygoda, grant writer and retired from government service in the state of Georgia, who is dedicated to service especially to our veterans (a little history on Sylvia's father, Hermann Wygoda, WWII hero: Unique among Holocaust memoirs, In the Shadow of the Swastika, now in paperback, celebrates the memory of a man who received decorations from three Western powers and who, years later, was honored posthumously by the Italian city he helped to liberate. Throughout the years of the Holocaust, Hermann Wygoda lived a life of narrow escapes, daring masquerades, and battles that almost defy reason.)
There are 15,000 returning soldiers and veterans serviced in this region for mental health with a couple of hundred going through the local VA Clinic daily. The need is great and when government funds are limited, Heartland’s original approach of a public/private/social venture which was the principle Heartland was founded on is needed.
Heartland’s newest research venture with developmental disabilities and brain injury is partnering with Orange Grove and the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga on a new research project, Heartland Arcade at Orange Grove, which utilizes adapted arcade games. The arcade is an ingenious concept of using adapted arcade games employing a multisensory experience using lighting effects, color, sounds, music and exercising hand/eye co-ordination developed by Dr. Rick Rader, a founder of Heartland Programs. These games will deliver stimuli to various senses which hopefully increase improvement in all aspects of development.
The Heartland Therapeutic Programs Board of Directors invites you to get acquainted with our innovative research and programs. We support financially all that we do through donations, grants, and our charity bingo at American Legion Post 214 on Thursday and Saturday evenings near Ft. Oglethorpe, GA.
If you feel led to be one of our partners we appreciate all donations which are tax deductible. We will make sure you get the proper recognition and access to check out any of our programs.
Thank you in advance for any help you give us.