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Tuesday 6 October 2015

Chapter 15 – Enhancing Special Education Environments with Animal-Assisted Interventions at Green Chimneys: Opportunities and Practical Considerations

Handbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy (Fourth Edition)Foundations and Guidelines for Animal-Assisted Interventions
2015, Pages 211–224

Abstract

In 2013 Green Chimneys was visited by groups of human service professionals and students from Japan, Germany, and Austria and more than 100 individual professionals wanting to observe our human animal interaction programs and to learn “how we do what we do” with children and animals in a residential treatment setting and special education day school in order to replicate aspects of our program. Many of these guests were looking for guidance and were seeking specific advice on how to justify, conceive, and implement animal-assisted interventions (AAI) and animal-assisted (AAA) activities in a special education environment. Many had questions on how to convince school administrators of the merit that this work offers and how to integrate animals into existing schools or special education programs. While the Green Chimneys model can offer unique insights and decades long experience, our program exists within the context of the United States and evolved as a nongovernmental school in a unique and very personal fashion since 1947. It would be difficult to replicate this program in exactly the same way. But the Green Chimneys experience has wide appeal and broad application. It could serve as a national, even a global, model for best practice reform of education starting with the very young. This chapter intends to serve as an overview and tool for those interested in applying AAI in the context of special education for children. We will focus on applied research evidence relevant to this area, provide a description of the Green Chimneys animal-assisted intervention programs, show how this approach complements traditional educational goals, and offer practical considerations gained at Green Chimneys that may provide helpful guidance to others considering AAI in special education environments for children and youth.

Keywords

  • Animal-assisted interventions;
  • Children and animals;
  • Green Chimneys;
  • Humane education