Best Practice Standards in Animal-Assisted Interventions: How the LEAD Risk Assessment Tool Can Help

Abstract

Animal-assisted interventions (AAI) in educational and other settings have steadily increased over the last fifty years and a steep rise in AAI has been observed in many countries and settings in recent years. Surprisingly, while different providers and organisations provide a range of guidelines, no unified, standardised guidelines or risk assessment tools for AAI exist. This means that in practice AAI takes place in an unregulated manner and without a gold standard of best practice. In addition, knowledge of which interventions are effective is still scarce and the mechanisms of successful interventions are not yet fully understood. This is partly due to AAI being a relatively new research field and standards of research and practice have often lacked rigour in the past. Furthermore, knowledge and experience of providers undertaking interventions varies greatly as there is no standardised training either. We address the striking lack of standardised guidelines and procedures. In all AAI, high importance should be placed on safety and welfare of all involved. Children and other AAI participants, staff and animals should be given equal consideration when assessing risks and welfare needs. To ensure safe AAI worldwide, we provide urgently needed guidelines on best practice in relation to risk assessment, safeguarding and animal welfare priorities. The guidelines were developed for a large-scale longitudinal, randomised controlled trial AAI project and are relevant to AAIs within educational and other settings. We also provide the first set of comprehensive risk assessment and animal welfare tools to achieve consistent welfare and safety standards for best practice across educational and other settings around the world.

Can dogs reduce stress levels in school children? effects of dog-assisted interventions on salivary cortisol in children with and without special educational needs using randomized controlled trials

“…Any child worried about meeting the dog did not need to take part–but, if they wanted to, was purposely seated next to the researcher and the greeting process was child-led. No child was made to stroke a dog or interact with any dog if they did not feel comfortable in doing so, and the handler did not approach them with the dog unless they requested it (see also [ 86 ] for detailed guidelines).…”

Recognizing and Mitigating Canine Stress during Animal Assisted Interventions

“…Risk assessment is essential to setting up AAIs for success and preventing stress and potential injury to human and animal participants. The LEAD (Lincoln Education Assistance with Dogs) Assessment Tool [47] serves as the current best practice standard for risk assessment in animal-assisted activities, including animal-assisted interventions, education, and therapy. The tool provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating potential risks to human and animal participants tailored to specific environments.…”

Visiting Hours: Spacetimes of Human–Animal Interaction in South African Elder Care

“…Still, animals as pets and service providers are also often prohibited in elder care spaces due to medical assumptions that animals put frail, immunocompromised older adults at risk for injury or infectious disease (Brelsford et al. 2020).…”

“…Studies based in the Global North show that when older adults stroke the fur of a real or robotic dog, this scheduled interaction reduces negative behavioral symptoms, improves social engagement, or improves quality of care experiences (Lai et al 2019). Still, animals as pets and service providers are also often prohibited in elder care spaces due to medical assumptions that animals put frail, immunocompromised older adults at risk for injury or infectious disease (Brelsford et al 2020).…”