Introduction

Centerstone has been working for over 170 years to provide mental health services to those who need it most. All of the therapists involved are well educated and talented in the areas that they serve. School-based therapists are trained to work with children of varying ages and have an arsenal of tools at hand. However, there is one tool that this arsenal is missing. This tool is pet-therapy.

Pet therapy is an evidence-based tool that has been used by therapists for decades. It uses the love of animals and their calming presence to help clients be able to better voice their fears and help alleviate their anxieties. Peer-reviewed studies in journals both in the past and in the present show that using pet therapy with child clients is highly effective in reducing anxiety and depression.

The program introduced in this document seeks to create access to pet therapy in middle-schools in Bradley county. Centerstone therapists would be trained in how to utilize this tool with child clients. The hope of this program is to reduce the rates of anxiety and depression in middle-school aged child clients.

Social Issue

The social condition that will be addressed is anxiety and depression in middle-aged children regardless of gender which studies have found to be a significant issue. The CDC states that 7.1% of adolescents are diagnosed with anxiety in the U.S., this represents around 4.4 million youth (CDC, 2021). This same study found that 3.2% of adolescents are diagnosed with depression, representing around 1.9 million youth (CDC, 2021). Moreover, the prevalence of diagnosed anxiety and depression in adolescents has increased by around 4 percent in the past 10 years with the prevalence of diagnosed depression remaining constant (CDC, 2021).

In doing research about Centerstone, I wondered if this would be a good project to do for my Program Development class. My group and I discussed it and decided that using pet therapy could really benefit Centerstone as a whole. We wanted to start small, so we decided to create the Program to only include middle-school clients in school-based therapy. This allows us to tailor the program more specifically and see if it is beneficial before asking for a large amount of money.

Interventions

 The Pet Therapy Program will be specifically targeting the needs of middle school children who are currently experiencing some form of anxiety and depression. The program will also focus on reducing overall stress. Stress can make it hard for some children to communicate their feelings. Having pets around allows clients to bond with animals without relying on any language.

The human-animal bond has traversed diverse topics and fields of practice. It examines the relevance of animal-assisted therapy to an ecological approach to the social work practice, specifically when working with children and young people. The Theory of ecological approach considers both practice and ethical issues for social workers using AAT. In western culture, one of the first people to explore the bond between humans and animals was Dr, Boris Levison. He argued that a child’s relationship with a therapy animal could help establish a connection with the worker. He also stated that animal co-workers can be particularly beneficial for children who have difficulties in trusting and forming attachments to people. Recent research findings support this argument, concluding that social workers accompanied by animals are seen as more approachable (Evans & Gray, 2011). A social worker’s ability to engage and form positive relationships with clients is a fundamental yet critical skill. Through an ecological framework, social workers can observe and interact with the client’s animal companions. The possibility that animals provide significant support to clients should never be overlooked.

Human and animal interaction can improve the quality of life for millions of individuals and greatly affect the animals involved. Advocates of Animal Assisted Therapy must give careful thought to the use of therapy animals and should use guidelines/screening to gain the practical skills necessary to enable effective placements. Companion animals can help society increase awareness of and concern for our environment, along with our fellow-man (Moore, 1984)

Potential Results

            Centerstone has already made it clear to me that this project could be implemented in the future but not amid the current COVID-19 crisis. After my practicum with Centerstone, I hope to stay with them as a member of their staff. Once I am hired and settled into my roles with them, I hope to begin to advocate for and implement this program.

The hope for this program is among the parents contacted by Centerstone asked to participate in pet therapy (approximately 300 parent units), 125 of them will enroll in the pet therapy program and 80% will complete the program. This will hopefully lead to the decrease of anxiety and depression rates and levels in Centerstone clients.

This program is one of many programs run and funded by Centerstone. Pet therapy could be funded by Centerstone through time. Since the curriculum will be created by the therapists executing this program, the only true expense for Centerstone, out of pocket, is payment to the owners of the therapy dogs. However, even this expense may not be long-standing as some people may volunteer their therapy dogs.

Numerous studies have indicated there are benefits of pets influencing a person’s health and the adjustment of individuals, including children (Flom, 2005). Animals are known to be excellent educational tools because the life cycle, activities, and habits of many animals are readily observed (More, 1984). School counselors can use small pets such as hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs as an effective adjunct intervention. These pocket pets are known for helping build rapport, enhance counseling relationships, and help the client work on their issues, including their feelings and other related behaviors. However, young students as well as older students, who struggle with impulse control issues require close monitoring with animals in the counseling office. This does not mean that these students do not benefit from Pet Therapy. Hamsters, gerbils, and guinea pigs respond dramatically to disturbances within their environment. Students who have impulse control issues and wish to hold a hamster quickly learn that they must use a quiet voice, and gentle movements. This demonstrates a calmness that allows them to connect with the hamster in silence (Flom, 2005).

Although there is much-supporting evidence that animal therapy is a good tool to use with children and adolescents, most Animal Facilitated Therapy (AFT) literature can appear to be biased toward an advocacy position. Pet therapy failures can and do arise at some point. Problems can occur if an animal selection is inappropriate and animals are mismatched with a patient’s needs. This has the potential to worsen a client’s condition and even worsen AFT treatment if the timing is not right. For example, patients can become possessive and try to “adopt” a pet for themselves. Also, injury from biting or scratching animals can occur if an animal selection was not done correctly or there is a lack of staff supervision. (Moore, 1984). 

Data will be collected through the distribution of surveys to the participants of the program after the implementation of the program for a predetermined amount of time. Centerstone will complete a survey regarding the efficiency and efficacy of the training they have created for their therapists and the parent education workshops that have been completed. The school administrator will complete a questionnaire about whether they have been able to provide the appropriate space for the pet therapy program to be conducted in. Therapists will receive surveys via email from Centerstone and will send the surveys to the parents of participant students for the parents and students to fill out together. The surveys will then be returned to the therapists who will send them to Centerstone. The surveys will evaluate whether the participants are receiving appropriate counseling services for their specific needs. The surveys will also evaluate how the participants feel about the possible outcomes of pet therapy. Other aspects of the survey will include questions about the beginning of the pet therapy process such as comfortability and ease with which the children began the program and any issues that have arisen during the program so far, such as negative experiences or reactions. Therapists will also complete the surveys so the program creators can gather data on what they think is working well and what aspects may need adjustment. This evaluation is conducted during the implementation of the program to gather data about what improvements might better serve the population. 

A summative evaluation will be conducted to determine the success of the pet therapy program in middle schools in Bradley County, Tennessee. The data source will be the children and therapists enrolled in the pet therapy program. The instruments used to evaluate the success of the program will be surveys and in-person interviews. Surveys will be sent to students’ parents to gather data on how they perceive pet therapy has helped their child and how their child’s anxiety and depression has/has not decreased. The surveys will also be sent to the therapists administering pet therapy to gather information on whether the therapists felt the pet therapy aspect positively influenced mental health improvement in children. 

The benchmark used to determine success would be a decrease in anxiety and depression in the children receiving pet therapy. The indicators of this change would be positive changes in mental health and behavior. Interviews will also be conducted with the students and their parents at their final therapy session to evaluate whether they feel satisfied with the results of receiving pet therapy. Indicators that the student is ready to discontinue pet therapy would be that they feel they have reached their goal to decrease their anxiety and depression and feel ready to move forward without regular therapy appointments. This step is one of the final steps of the overall evaluation plan to evaluate the success of the pet therapy program.

Conclusions

The program’s main concern is the safety of both animals and people. There is a possibility that injuries will occur if a pet is not matched with the right client. There is also a possibility of allergic reactions. For example, a client may not be aware that he/she may be allergic to an animal. Although pet therapy is commonly used, this pet therapy program is very new to the Bradley County area, there is no clear idea on how implementing the program will be received by community members. Another concern for the program is funding and expansion limitations. At this time, the program is primarily focusing on middle schools. Expanding to other schools may be met with some hesitancy due to unfamiliarity with the program. Additionally, expanding to places like hospitals and related areas may pose a serious risk of infection.

Applications to Competencies

Competency 1: Ethics and Professionalism – This Competency relates to this project in two main ways. Most prominent is the use of written and oral communication skills. In the writing and presenting of this project, I believe that I am fulfilling this competency. The second tie that I believe this competency has to my project is in the ethical framework that had to be built for the “imaginary” implementation of this project. Working with animals is no easy feat especially when there are children involved. To have these two parties work together safely, my group and I had to come up with ways to ethically handle parents, child/client, and the animals.

Competency 2: Diversity – This Competency relates to this project in that it can work with any race or ethnicity. As part of the project, we created a needs assessment. That needs assessment is for anyone, no matter their background. This project also seeks to ethically work with all races. This involves checking biases before starting work with clients.

Competency 3: Human Rights & Justice – I believe that competency 3 is fulfilled in this project as whole in that it seeks to aid the mental health struggles of the clients involved. For the lower socioeconomic status clients, this is a treatment that they would not ordinarily receive. This is, in turn, a project designed to find a modality that works for all clients and can help given them social justice.

Competency 4: Research – Research was done throughout this project. The biggest aspect of research in this project was done to find the efficacy of working with animals with middle-school-aged children. We found that the efficacy rates are high and that pet therapy is an evidence-based modality of therapy.

Competency 5: Policy – Though this program is not currently being created and implemented by Centerstone, their policy of not working with animals is being reevaluated. I believe that this competency is fulfilled in the policy changes that are discussed in the proposal and those that would need to take place if this program were implemented.

Competency 6: Engagement – Engagement with clients is the foundation on which this project was built. This engagement piece was completed in talking with the agency about how the program could be implemented. Pet therapy is an evidence-based therapeutic modality that can be used through this project with Centerstone clients.

Competency 7: Assessment – For this project, a needs assessment was created. In order for this program to work, we have to assess the needs of clients and figure out what they believe they could take away from this therapeutic modality. Though this has not been done in reality, it is outlined in the project as something that would need to be done if the program were implemented.

Competency 8: Intervention – Pet therapy is an evidence-based intervention. This program is not one that Centerstone believes they can handle right now, but if it were to be implemented, pet therapy would be the intervention on which the whole program is based.

Competency 9: Evaluation – A formative evaluation will be conducted while the pet therapy project is in process in order to measure the outputs of the program. This is in order to measure the extent to which recipients of pet therapy improved in anxiety, depression and self-esteem. The outputs of the pet therapy program include the activities and participants. The data source for output evaluation will include Centerstone who is responsible for creating the training for therapists to be certified in pet therapy, the school that houses the pet therapy program, therapists who will be administering the pet therapy, the parents whose children are enrolled in the program and the students who are enrolled in the pet therapy program. This is in order to measure the extent to which recipients of pet therapy improved in anxiety, depression and self-esteem. 

 

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