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College: It isn’t just for humans anymore.

Welcome to the world of Helping Hands and their Monkey College in Boston, MA. Founded in 1979, Helping Hands is a nonprofit “that places specially trained capuchin monkeys with people who are paralyzed, or who suffer other severe mobility impairments.”

When I first found out about Helping Hands a couple of weeks ago, I was intrigued with the idea of using monkeys as assistance animals and had lots of questions. I interviewed Skott Wade, a Helping Hands employee, about the world of the Monkey Helpers.

Why capuchin monkeys?
Helping Hands decided to use these South American monkeys for a couple of important reasons. First of all, they are New World monkeys, which means that they are healthier and less plagued by disease than their Old World counterparts. Plus, they live to be between 35 and 40 years of age! In addition, capuchin monkeys are extremely intelligent, which makes them great candidates for training to perform a variety of activities for their future owners.

What are the pros and cons of having a monkey versus having a dog?
As Wade succinctly put it, “Dogs are great for what they do; the monkeys are just different.” Given the difference in size between dogs and the small monkeys, the monkeys are perfectly suited for the small tasks: scratching an itch, putting a DVD into a DVD player, switching lights on or off, etc. Unlike dogs, who may do a lot of traveling with their owners, Wade explained that the monkeys are happiest and most in their element in their owners’ homes. In this light, the capuchin monkeys have proven to be incredibly loving companions. Not only are they cute, but they also allow their owner to live a more independent life. Wade believes that this level of companionship is extremely helpful to someone who may feel like their lives have been defined solely by their disability.

How does Helping Hands operate?
The organization is quite small, consisting of 12 employees.  There are currently about 30 monkeys in training at Monkey College, and about 15 monkeys are placed in homes around the country per year. Even before a monkey is enrolled into the college to begin their education, they are raised by foster families. Most of these families, all volunteers, live in the northeast. While fostering a monkey is great way to get involved with Helping Hands, it is also extremely important that these families be well-qualified. The foster family must provide everything the monkey needs prior to Monkey College: vet visits, toys, food, etc. According to Wade, these costs can amount to more than $40,000. Since Helping Hands is able to recruit volunteers to foot the costs of raising the monkeys (in addition to private donations and grants), they are able to provide the trained monkeys to their new owners free of charge.

Another quality of Helping Hands is that the organization operates at a very personal level. Once the monkeys arrive at Monkey College, they all receive the same basic training. After a future owner is identified for a particular monkey, that monkey will undergo customized training to develop specific skills beneficial to its future owner. The employees at Helping Hands strive to match each client with the monkey that is best able to suit the client’s needs. The application process to receive a monkey is quite lengthy, because Helping Hands is dedicated to providing their clients with the right monkeys, and to providing monkeys to clients that most need assistance.

The monkeys spend anywhere from 2 to 4 years at Monkey College before being placed in a home. Some monkeys stay with one owner for the rest of their lives, others are placed back in training for a new owner if their first owner passes away, and monkeys that are too old to be retrained are placed in “retirement homes” (i.e. permanent foster homes).

One other Helping Hands program worth mentioning is SCIPP: the Spinal Cord Injury Prevention Program. Helping Hands uses SCIPP to teach Boston’s youth about smart ways to try and prevent spinal cord injuries (i.e., wearing a seatbelt while in the car). Wade stated that Helping Hands wants to help those with SCI in any way it can, but that it also wants to try and prevent such injuries from happening in the first place. Wade thinks that the monkeys serve to be excellent “spokes-animals” for the program, as having an adorable monkey as part of a SCIPP school assembly is a major attention-grabber for young adults.

Special thanks to Skott Wade for providing information about the world of Helping Hands. I encourage you to check out their Web site: http://www.monkeyhelpers.org/ if you are interested in finding out more about this Boston nonprofit.

Want to read more about service animals? See Service Dogs Meet Needs of Those with a Disability.