Certified Humane Education Specialist (CHES) Credentialing Program Finds a New Home

HEART is thrilled to share some very exciting news: We have acquired the Certified Humane Education Specialist (CHES) nationwide credentialing program and certification registry from our longtime field partner, the Academy of Prosocial Learning (APL).

The CHES program’s high-quality virtual on-demand and instructor-led training modules prepare a broad range of educators to provide effective humane education to children in a variety of youth settings ranging from schools to summer camps to community-based organizations. The program also maintains the only registry of credentialed U.S. humane educators.

CHES’s affordable tuition cost for enrollees makes humane educator credentialing more accessible than any university program, bringing certification within relatively easy reach of a broader base of prospective program participants, including teachers, mental health professionals, parents, caregivers, informal educators, activists, and others.

CHES was originally housed within the Humane Society of the United States (now Humane World for Animals).  Dr. Stephanie Itle-Clark—an education expert on staff at the time who is widely respected in the humane education field and has been an esteemed colleague of HEART’s for many years—significantly expanded CHES’s curriculum.  APL, which Stephanie founded in 2016, later acquired CHES.

The transition of CHES from APL to HEART is currently in progress and is expected to be complete later this spring.  We look forward to continuing our fruitful partnership with Stephanie and are honored to steward CHES into a new era.

Read the joint HEART-APL press release for more information about HEART’s acquisition of CHES and learn more about the CHES program.