Therapy Dogs in Educational Settings: Guidelines and Recommendations for Implementation.

ABSTRACT: Therapy dogs in educational settings have gained increase traction in recent years. Despite its potential benefits and popularity, there remain concerns of perceived risks such as sanitation, allergies, and safety issues, as well as a lack of guidelines, regulations and support resources available to school staff. Research is further lacking into the implementation process of therapy dog programs in educational settings. To construct a set of recommendations for school staff to achieve successful implementation of a therapy dog program, the present study investigated the perceived facilitative and impeding factors when implementing a therapy dog program. A total of 13 school staff and 2 coordinators from therapy dog organisations took part in an open-ended online survey and/or a semi-struc

SUBMITTER: Grove C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8217446 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature