photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Several officers attended a briefing on Thursday, September 4, 2025 to learn more about the Shadow Buddies program.

When she was 12 years old, Tyler Mosher lost her dad, Mike, in the line of duty. He was a police officer in Overland Park, and he was killed in a shootout in 2020.

One thing that helped her through that heartbreaking situation, Mosher said, was a special “buddy” doll that she received from the nonprofit Shadow Buddies Foundation. The dolls are designed to remind kids in traumatic situations that they’re not alone, and that people understand and care about them.

“I was 12 … when my dad passed away, so the buddy acted really as a comfort for me even though I was older,” Mosher said. “But my younger cousins also got a buddy, and they still have a little (buddy) on their bed each night.”

She told her story on Thursday to a room full of officers with the Lawrence Police Department, which as soon as this week could be handing out “buddies” to help kids in Lawrence who are going through trauma.

“I’m assuming that a process where you guys are involved can take a long time and can be really draining on a child,” Mosher said. “So this buddy will act as a comfort for them, but also showing the child that the officer really does care about them.”

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Tyler Mosher

Based in Kansas City, the Shadow Buddies Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing comfort and emotional support dolls for children across the nation. It’s marking its 30th anniversary this year. According to the nonprofit’s 2024 annual report, 2.5 million Shadow Buddies had been distributed as of the end of 2024, and they are found in 178 hospitals, all 50 U.S. states and 21 countries.

The foundation’s website details how it was founded in 1995 by Marty Postlethwait. Her son, Miles, had health struggles as a child and had to undergo dozens of surgical procedures, and she created Shadow Buddies to inspire families in similar circumstances and provide “the right tools to help comfort and educate families while going through a crisis situation.”

“These buddies go such a long way because it is tangible and they can hold it, and it really gives them a sense of comfort and a sense of pride,” Postlethwait said at Thursday’s briefing. “And we’ve just seen the magic of what these buddies have done working with the different police departments and the force that they have to provide that sense of comfort and compassion.”

At first, Shadow Buddies focused on children with medical challenges. The soft, cuddly buddies were designed to signify specific conditions — there are dolls specifically for children who are undergoing heart surgery, cancer treatment or burn treatment, for example.

The idea was that health care professionals could give the child a buddy that resembles them and their condition, and the child can use the buddy to rehearse the treatment process, ask questions and express fears about the procedure.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

A graphic shows the different types of Shadow Buddies that have been created since the nonprofit’s inception in 1995.

But Shadow Buddies has since grown to work with first responders, too. They can offer the buddies to children during traumatic or stressful situations to provide comfort and build trust. The first buddies representing first responders and other professions were created in 2020, Postlethwait said.

“What I wanted to do in 2020 was to honor our ‘courageous crew,’ which to me is the fire department, the police department, first responders, the doctors and military buddies,” Postlethwait said.

The Shadow Buddies dolls are available in both boy and girl designs and with light, medium and dark skin tones. The goal for the first responder buddies is to give the child a buddy that looks like them, and if that’s not possible, to give them one that looks like the officer who’s helping them. A marker is also included with each buddy so officers can make the doll more unique and personalized for the child, such as by writing a note or their badge number on it.

Postlethwait said that “little by little, we’ve been kind of inching away at different departments.” She said that in addition to departments in the Kansas City area, the buddies are now also used by departments in Iowa and Nebraska. The nonprofit also created a special buddy for the Johnson County Sheriff’s office based on the department’s real-life therapy dog, a black lab.

“His name is Gus,” Postlethwait said. “Gus is the real comfort dog that is used in Johnson County.” By the end of 2024, the Gus buddy had been handed out to 1,802 children.

Lawrence police’s buddies could soon have a special touch, too: Postlethwait said that in the next set of buddies, if the department is interested, the buddies can be customized to put the department’s badge on them.

“We would love to put your badge on here,” Postlethwait said. “We just got permission from the Overland Park police chief that the next set of buddies we’re going to do (will have their badge).”

Mosher has volunteered with the nonprofit for years since her father’s death and has helped spread awareness of the program in the law enforcement community. Another thing she loves about the buddies is when an officer gives a child a buddy, that child is more likely to talk to their family members and friends about how they had a good interaction with a police officer.

“That’s something that I find really valuable, is that with that one interaction, at that point, hundreds of kids can be impacted by that, and that’s really special to me,” Mosher said.

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Marty Postlethwait, director of The Shadow Buddies Foundation

photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Officer Daniel Affalter II holds two Shadow Buddies during a briefing on Thursday, September 4, 2025.