Qualified Testers & Youth Apprentice Pathway™

Brain First Tested Awards™ must be reviewed with humane, safe, respectful handling.

Crown & Collar Institute™ does not support testing methods based on fear, intimidation, harsh correction, flooding, unnecessary force, unsafe pressure, humiliation, or forcing a dog through a review when the dog is clearly overwhelmed, injured, ill, unsafe, or not ready.

A tester or evaluator may pause or stop a review when the dog, handler, public, evaluator, youth assistant, or environment appears unsafe.

Because youth apprentices may assist around dogs, children, families, public events, therapy-dog education, service-dog pathway education, and community outreach, Crown & Collar Institute™ expects youth apprentices to build real safety skills before taking on higher levels of responsibility.

Youth may begin as supervised observers while they are working toward safety requirements.

Before serving as a Youth Testing Assistant™ or Youth Evaluator Apprentice™, youth should complete or be actively completing approved safety training such as:

• Babysitting, child-care, or child-safety training
• Pediatric and Adult First Aid / CPR / AED training
• Cat & Dog / Pet First Aid training
• Wilderness or Remote First Aid training for outdoor, ranch, field, camp, travel, or public-service settings

Crown & Collar Institute™ may accept American Red Cross courses or approved equivalent training from qualified providers, schools, emergency-service programs, veterinary programs, scouting programs, community programs, or other approved organizations.

Crown & Collar Institute™ does not claim to replace outside CPR, First Aid, AED, child-safety, pet first aid, or wilderness first aid certification unless a formal provider agreement or qualified instructor arrangement is in place.

Crown & Collar Institute™ may document community service, public service, volunteer, leadership, and learning hours for youth and adult participants.

Hours may include:

• Brain First Tested Awards™ event support
• Youth Ambassador education
• Public dog-safety education
• Therapy-dog pathway education
• Service-dog pathway education
• Community outreach
• Event setup and cleanup
• Supervised evaluator training
• Approved observation or documentation work
• Safety-course hours
• Crown & Collar written-course hours
• Mock scoring practice
• Public education table support
• Dog body language education
• Service-hour log preparation
• Working-team documentation support

For now, these hours are documented as Crown & Collar Institute™ service and learning hours. Participants may submit their records to schools, clubs, homeschool programs, civic groups, youth organizations, churches, 4-H-style programs, scouting-style programs, volunteer programs, or other organizations when those organizations choose to accept them.

Crown & Collar Institute™ does not guarantee outside academic credit unless a separate agreement is created with the school or educational partner.

Crown & Collar Institute™ may require testers, evaluators, apprentices, reviewers, and panel members to disclose possible conflicts of interest.

A conflict of interest may include reviewing:

• A dog owned by the tester
• A dog bred by the tester
• A dog trained by the tester
• A dog owned by a family member
• A dog connected to the tester's business
• A dog connected to a close personal relationship
• A dog connected to a financial arrangement

A conflict of interest does not automatically prevent review, but it should be disclosed. Crown & Collar may require a second evaluator, specialist reviewer, video review, or review panel when needed.