Region Ten Community Services Board Animal-Assisted Therapy Program

Region Ten Community Services Board, an agency serving mentally ill and intellectually-delayed consumers, received a grant for $4,000 last February, to begin an animal assisted therapy (AAT) program, the first such innovative program at a Community Services Board (CSB) in Virginia. The program uses certified therapy dogs in a variety of counseling environments as a means to help consumers improve and maintain healthy, independent lifestyles. The grant funding was used to include training for Region Ten staff in AAT techniques by the Center for Human-Animal Interactions at Virginia Commonwealth University, training for the dogs to meet certification requirements and evaluations of therapy dog teams through Therapy Dogs International (TDI). Although this program required a minimal financial investment, the benefits to improving mental health and quality of life to consumers has already been observed to greatly outweigh any incurred costs Because the majority of Region Ten consumers are mentally ill adults, we have limited our one-year pilot to this population. Since February, we have trained and certified six therapy dogs. We plan to demonstrate positive results in order to expand the program to include services for children and intellectually delayed individuals. To evaluate the effectiveness of the one-year pilot program, we are currently collecting consumer-related outcome data by using surveys based on the Chima project (Urichuck & Anderson (2003)), and collecting subjective documentation from direct observations. AAT is an evidenced-based practice, with a growing interest in the use of animals in the counseling process, promoting improvement in human physical, social, emotional and cognitive functioning. Research shows participation of an animal in the therapeutic process motivates clients to participate in treatment (Chandler, 2005), increases rapport within the client-counselor relationship, reduces stress of therapy, and allows for quicker and greater recovery (Odendaal, 2000). Since beginning the program in February, we have already observed that animals can provide healing benefits by creating a sense of safety for traumatized, defensive, or detached consumers as well as promote socialization, mental stimulation and empathy, and reducing isolation and loneliness. Therapy dogs are especially helpful as part of a crisis intervention by offering a sense of normalcy to a very abnormal situation (Chandler, 2005) and a recently certified therapy dog at Region Ten is currently being used in our emergency services department. Over the past eight months, our AAT program has been favorably featured in the news media including Charlottesville NBC 29 news and Charlottesville Daily Progress. Region Ten Community Services Board is part of a statewide network of 40 Community Services Boards in Virginia. We are a 501(3) nonprofit organization that provides mental health, intellectual disability and substance abuse services, striving to improve the quality of lives of the people we serve by offering innovative treatment methods. Region Ten serves almost 6,000 consumers and has nearly 600 employees