Profession animal assisted therapist

Animal assisted therapists provide support to individuals with cognitive, motoric, or social-emotional disabilities through animal assisted intervention. They involve pets and domesticated animals in a specific intervention plan such as therapy, education, and human service, and aim to restore and maintain the patients` well-being and recovery.

Personality Type

• Social / Investigative
• Investigative / Social
• Artistic / Social

Knowledge

• Animal therapy

  The involvement of animals in a treatment in order to improve the social, emotional or cognitive functioning of the patient.

Skills

• Assess the patient's therapeutic needs

  Observe and assess the patient`s behaviour, attitudes and emotions in order to understand if and how their therapeutic needs can be met with a specific kind of therapy, collecting and analysing information on how the client makes, responds to, and relates to artistic stimulae. Relate this information to other aspects of the patient`s life.

• Maintain healthcare user data confidentiality

  Comply with and maintain the confidentiality of healthcare users` illness and treatment information.

• Recruit animal handlers

  Select and instruct animal trainers in order to integrate the animals in the therapy.

• Develop a collaborative therapeutic relationship

  Develop a mutually collaborative therapeutic relationship during treatment, fostering and gaining healthcare users' trust and cooperation.

• Interact with healthcare users

  Communicate with clients and their carer’s, with the patient’s permission, to keep them informed about the clients’ and patients’ progress and safeguarding confidentiality.

• Instruct animals for therapy purposes

  Control animals in order to provide therapeutic treatments for psychologically or medically ill patients.

• Select therapy animals

  Identify the right animal with the right temperament appropriate for the therapy.

• Provide health education

  Provide evidence based strategies to promote healthy living, disease prevention and management.

• Listen actively

  Give attention to what other people say, patiently understand points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times; able to listen carefully the needs of customers, clients, passengers, service users or others, and provide solutions accordingly.

Optional knowledge and skills

Source: Sisyphus ODB