Since the 1960s, the field of education in the U.S. has been increasingly influenced by the concept of competency-based education: helping students learn performance-based competencies rather than solely learning data. Competency-based education focuses on outcomes rather than the learning itself. The concept of competency has become integrated into many fields, including animal-assisted interventions (AAI). Organizations like the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association (the Human-Animal Interaction section of Division 17) have published competencies related not only to providing mental health therapy but also to providing such therapy with the assistance of a therapy animal.
It follows that volunteer animal handlers as well as professional therapists could be expected to demonstrate competence in the broad field of AAI (activities, therapy, education/learning, literacy, and more). It is becoming more common in the U.S. to find volunteers in hospitals with their therapy dogs. Even television shows and com¬mercials now include therapy dogs in their scripts.
Volunteer AAI handlers in facilities generally work quite independently with their animals, often without direct supervision. In contrast, some animal handlers work directly with a human healthcare clinician in mental or physical health, where the animal handler is responsible for the animal and the therapist staff member is responsible for the client. Even in this latter situation, the therapist rarely provides direct supervision to the animal handler and may not have influence over which animal-handler team to work with.
Given the high level of independent work, finding an animal-handler team who is a good fit is essential for everyone’s safety. This book provides guidance to clini¬cians, facility staff, and program coordinators to help them determine whether a han¬dler is competent to independently provide safe service in their facility or program.