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.
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Personality Type
- Social / Investigative
- Investigative / 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
- Instruct animals for therapy purposes
Control animals in order to provide therapeutic treatments for psychologically or medically ill patients.
- Provide health education
Provide evidence based strategies to promote healthy living, disease prevention and management.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Select therapy animals
Identify the right animal with the right temperament appropriate for the therapy.
- Maintain healthcare user data confidentiality
Comply with and maintain the confidentiality of healthcare users` illness and treatment information.