b'RIGHTEOUS PUPSRighteous Pups.Photo: Meredith OSheaThe beautiful thing about dogs is they are completelyand psychological risk. The teenagers may present with and uniquely authentic, says Jo Baker. Dogs are whoa range of issues, including anxiety, aggression, PTSD, they are, and they accept you, regardless of whether youdepression, suicidal thoughts and disability. Their school are known to the police or youve been suspended fromattendance is often sketchy.school for three weeks in a row or whether youre goodWe are dealing with kids that are really fighting for their at maths or lousy at English. Thats not how they judgesurvival now, she said. What we are trying to do is to not people. They judge people by kindness and respect and only turn that on its hinge but show them that there are all those innate life skills that you need to get through skills they can learn through working through the dogs this life. and with us that can actually take them from struggling Jo is the Managing Director of Righteous Pups, anow to thriving. Of course, everything we do has its aim charity based just outside of Bendigo, which has foundto turn them back towards engaging with their education, multiple ways to utilise the innate goodness of theso that they will have different choices by the time they pooch. Righteous Pups provides trained assistance dogsfinish secondary school.for people living with autism, or for those with Type 1Jo says the tragedy is that because they are struggling diabetes, who need a medical alert dog. They also providenow, these teenagers can be written off as broken and seizure response dogs for people living with epilepsytold that they cant expect much out of life. She disagrees.among other potentially dangerous conditions. But the delivery of these trained dogs is only part of theAt Righteous Pups, we automatically assume every story for Righteous Pups. The magic is in how these dogsyoung person before us has promise, Jo explained. That get trained up in the first place, thanks to the Wellnessperson is uniquely who they are, and they have a special Warriors Project (formerly known as Bridging the Gap).something, their own superpower, but sometimes, most Funded by the Newsboys Foundation, the Wellnessof the time, they cant see it because all theyve heard Warriors are adolescent kids from the local area, battlingand then believed about themselves is that theyll never the deep end of life at an early age. The program catersamount to anything. All they hear is: Youre a problem. for up to75 young people within the City of GreaterYoure difficult, youre broken. This is the best lifes going Bendigo region, identified as being at severe educationalto get for you. 6NEWSBOYS FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT 2023'