spcaLA: Friends for Life

Humane Education

Teaching Love and Compassion (TLC)™

A Program Aimed at Ending the Cycle of Violence

spcaLA has become nationally and internationally renowned for its Teaching Love and Compassion (TLC)™ program, a violence-prevention program that works with at-risk youth. The TLC program is taught in California, Oregon, New York, Arizona, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Colorado, North Carolina, Florida, Canada, England and Australia.

Preventing Violence

Through the use of animals, children develop coping skills, increased self-esteem and empathy towards living beings. Through conflict resolution and writing exercises, also a part of the program, there have been increases in reading scores and decreases in detention times for participating students.

Nurturing Compassion

Studies have shown that cruelty toward animals by children may be a symptom of existing domestic violence and stress; as well as a potential predictor of future violence towards people. This intensive workshop is designed to prevent animal cruelty and in turn prevent violence toward people. The TLC program helps the students identify and break the cycle of violence through positive feedback by building self-esteem and increasing respect for all living creatures. As children work through conflicts and challenges of performing as a group to train shelter animals, they develop compassion, responsibility and patience.

Learn more about the Cycle of Violence and the program we use to end it.

TLC Survey

The TLC program is currently looking for feedback in order to continue improving TLC in future years. We are asking students who have participated in previous TLC’s, their parents, and the adopters of TLC dogs to fill out these surveys so that we can evaluate the future direction of the program. If you choose, you can also print the form and mail it to:

12910 Yukon Avenue
Hawthorne, CA 90250

Please feel free to contact us with any other stories or comments regarding your TLC participation or dog adoption at humaneeducation@spcala.com. Thank you!

• TLC Graduate
• TLC Parent
• TLC Dog Adopter

Previous TLC classes

• 2012
  • Bunche February 27–March 22
  • Prairie Vista January 24th–February 10th
• 2011
  • Tincher November 28th–December 22nd
  • Bunche October 26th–November 21th
  • Prairie Vista September 26th–October 14th
  • Tincher May 9th–May 26th
  • Bunche February 28th–March 24th
  • Prairie Vista January 24th–February 17th
• 2010
  • Bunche October 25th–November 19th
  • Prairie Vista September 25th–October 15th
  • Ofman April 26th–May 7th
  • Prairie Vista January 25th–February 19th
• 2009
  • Ofman November 30th–December 11th
  • Prairie Vista October 19th–November 13th
  • Ofman April 27th–May 8th
  • Prairie Vista February 7th–March 6th
• 2008
  • Ofman December 8th–December 19th
  • Prairie Vista October 20th–November 7th