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

Knowledge

  • Animal therapy

    The involvement of animals in a treatment in order to improve the social, emotional or cognitive functioning of the patient.

Skills

  • 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.

  • Maintain healthcare user data confidentiality

    Comply with and maintain the confidentiality of healthcare users` illness and treatment information.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Instruct animals for therapy purposes

    Control animals in order to provide therapeutic treatments for psychologically or medically ill patients.

  • Select therapy animals

    Identify the right animal with the right temperament appropriate for the therapy.

  • Provide health education

    Provide evidence based strategies to promote healthy living, disease prevention and management.

  • 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.

Optional knowledge and skills

respond to changing situations in health care apply organisational techniques work with healthcare users' social network behavioural therapy employ foreign languages for health-related research show responsibility animal behaviour performance diagnosis control animal movement handle patient trauma deal with emergency care situations evaluation of psychological performance sociology refer healthcare users employ foreign languages in care human psychological development palliative care promote animal welfare contribute to continuity of health care use communication techniques

Source: Sisyphus ODB