Animal Assisted Interventions For Health And Human Service Professionals

"Animal-Assisted Interventions are goal-oriented and structured interactions that incorporate the human-animal bond. By including animals in health and human services, unique and significant therapeutic gains can be achieved. However, Animal-Assisted Interventions involve so much more than simply having a dog or horse present during therapy. For the sake of both the animals and humans involved, the health professional must be cognizant of a profusion of information in order to deliver ethical and effective services. Animal-Assisted Interventions for Health & Human Service Professionals provides physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language therapists, audiologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, and other health and rehabilitation specialists with the core knowledge required to effectively introduce dogs and horses into their practice. Wide-ranging and up-to-date content is provided by expert clinicians and researchers in the field of Animal-Assisted Interventions to produce the only comprehensive text to address topics relevant to all health professionals. Explicit direction is also provided separately for dog-human and horse-human therapy teams. Finally, discipline-specific attention is given to the latest in research and development, application, and best practice of including animals in healthcare and human services. This book is essential reading for any health and human service provider who is currently working with animals or who is considering expanding their practice to include the help of animal co-workers"--

"Animal-Assisted Interventions are goal-oriented and structured interactions that incorporate the human-animal bond. By including animals in health and human services, unique and significant therapeutic gains can be achieved. However, Animal-Assisted Interventions involve so much more than simply having a dog or horse present during therapy. For the sake of both the animals and humans involved, the health professional must be cognizant of a profusion of information in order to deliver ethical and effective services. Animal-Assisted Interventions for Health & Human Service Professionals provides physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech-language therapists, audiologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, and other health and rehabilitation specialists with the core knowledge required to effectively introduce dogs and horses into their practice. Wide-ranging and up-to-date content is provided by expert clinicians and researchers in the field of Animal-Assisted Interventions to produce the only comprehensive text to address topics relevant to all health professionals. Explicit direction is also provided separately for dog-human and horse-human therapy teams. Finally, discipline-specific attention is given to the latest in research and development, application, and best practice of including animals in healthcare and human services. This book is essential reading for any health and human service provider who is currently working with animals or who is considering expanding their practice to include the help of animal co-workers"--

Human beings have always been affected by their surroundings. There are various health benefits linked to being able to access to nature; including increased physical activity, stress recovery, and the stimulation of child cognitive development. The Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health provides a broad and inclusive picture of the relationship between our own health and the natural environment. All aspects of this unique relationship are covered, ranging from disease prevention through physical activity in green spaces to innovative ecosystem services, such as climate change adaptation by urban trees. Potential hazardous consequences are also discussed including natural disasters, vector-borne pathogens, and allergies. This book analyses the complexity of our human interaction with nature and includes sections for example epigenetics, stress physiology, and impact assessments. These topics are all interconnected and fundamental for reaching a full understanding of the role of nature in public health and wellbeing. Much of the recent literature on environmental health has primarily described potential threats from our natural surroundings. The Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health instead focuses on how nature can positively impact our health and wellbeing, and how much we risk losing by destroying it. The all-inclusive approach provides a comprehensive and complete coverage of the role of nature in public health, making this textbook invaluable reading for health professionals, students, and researchers within public health, environmental health, and complementary medicine.

Growing literature around the benefits of animal-assisted intervention (AAI) spurs health care professionals and administrators to start new programs. Yet the trend also raises questions of how best to begin and run successful AAI programs—under what circumstances, with what staff, and within what guidelines. Animal-Assisted Interventions in Health Care Settings: A Best Practices Manual for Establishing New Programs succinctly outlines how best to develop, implement, run, and evaluate AAI programs. Drawing on extensive professional experiences and research from more than fifteen years of leading the Center for Human-Animal Interaction in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, the authors discuss both best practices and best reasons for establishing AAI programs. For thorough consideration, the text explores benefits from a variety of perspectives, including how AAI can improve patient experience, provide additional career development for staff, and contribute favorably to organizational culture and to the reputation of the facility in the surrounding community. Developed for administrators as well as for volunteers and staff, Animal-Assisted Interventions in Health Care Settings includes practical, case-based examples for easy comprehension and offers an accompanying online user-friendly template that can be adapted to develop practice-specific training, evaluation, and procedure manuals.

Animal-Assisted Interventions for Emotional and Mental Health provides a unique opportunity to learn from a variety of leaders in the field. Leading scholar Dr. Cynthia Chandler and colleague Dr. Tiffany Otting present interviews with pioneering experts from the U.S., U.K., Israel, India, and Hong Kong, revealing key beliefs, values, and ideas that are fundamental to animal-assisted interventions. Their words will inspire and guide current and future generations of practitioners, teachers, and researchers.

How Change Happens in Equine-Assisted Interventions gives clinicians and researchers an intervention theory on the mechanisms of change during psychotherapy and other interventions that incorporate horses. Chapters introduce the concept of intervention theory, present a theory of the problem (what the client comes with), theories explaining the intervention (what is done during a session), and theories of change (what happens in the mind of a client), with each theory’s function described. Using an autoethnographic approach, the authors describe, deconstruct, and analyze personal experiences as clients during an equine-assisted intervention. Then the authors present and apply a unique intervention theory by linking it to the thoughts and experiences of clients in and after a session. Practitioners will come away from this book with a unique perspective on the field and with an increased understanding of what their clients are thinking both in and out of session. Researchers will have an explanatory theory from which to draw testable hypotheses when studying interventions incorporating horses.

The domestication of dogs has led us across a very meaningful journey. Around the world, dogs are seen as confidants, family members, and a large part of our social network. Over time, dogs have been recognized for their natural healing ability to perform volunteer work within healthcare and human service environments. In recent times, the human-animal bond is recognized as a legitimate intervention within traditional and non-traditional healthcare, social sciences, and education. While our canine colleagues fulfill equally important volunteer and professional roles, within each realm, the expectations and skill sets for both human and hound are very different. The series of books titled Professional Applications of Animal Assisted Interventions is meant to initiate a learning experience for those who include dogs in healthcare, human services, and education. The Gray Dog Collection includes introductory and intermediate content such as discussions about screening people for participation, screening dogs for the job, intervention goals, modification of activities, precautions and professional responsibilities. Written by an occupational therapist that also trains dogs, the Gray Dog Collection is a fully illustrated book that describes nearly 50 new activities for participants of all ages and abilities. Readers are taken through activities step by step to identify the therapeutic value, supplies needed, precautions, modification ideas, and dog welfare, well-being and training. Like other books in the series, The Gray Dog Collection offers practitioners and educator's valuable considerations from the canine perspective, and makes recommendations for prerequisite training skill sets, prior to joining in the activity. Activities from over a decade of workshop contents and clinical application are included. Therapists, veterinarians, educators, dogs with intermediate skills, and participants of all ages and abilities have evaluated the activities and found them to be fun, engaging, safe and purposeful.

Animal Assisted Therapy in Counseling is the most comprehensive book available dedicated to training mental health practitioners in Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT). It explains the history and practice of AAT in counseling, discusses the latest empirical research, and provides an in-depth explanation of the psychodynamics of AAT within various theoretical frameworks. Readers will learn the proper way to select, train, and evaluate an animal for therapy. The use of a number of different therapy animals is considered, including dogs, cats, horses, birds, farm animals, rabbits and other small animals, and dolphins. Guidelines for implementing AAT in settings such as private practices, community agencies, schools, hospices, and prisons are covered, as well as ethical and legal considerations, risk management, diversity issues, and crisis and disaster response applications. Numerous case examples illustrate the use of AAT principles with clients, and forms, client handouts, and other resources provide valuable tools. This unique resource is an indispensable guide for any counselor looking to develop and implement AAT techniques in his or her practice.