School's Mental Health Week Enhanced by Therapy Dog Visits

Students interact with a therapy dog from UBC

Source: F. L. L. Green Photography; used with permission

In the B.A.R.K. office at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus, we regularly receive calls from elementary, middle, and high schools to bring therapy dogs for participation in various events. While we can't accommodate all requests, we do prioritize events that optimize student mental well-being.

This past week, we had 10 of the B.A.R.K. dogs and handlers attend a Student Mental Health Week event at a local high school and their approach to supporting well-being saw student leaders organize a series of stations designed to reduce stress and bolster students' social connections and sense of community. Open to all neighboring schools, this event saw students from all grade levels attend and what follows are observations of this student-led initiative.

Therapy Dog Welfare Must Be Prioritized

Dogs working at public events, such as a school event, are carefully selected to ensure they have high startle reflexes, are adaptable to new environments, have been assessed for their suitability to work with children, and enjoy meeting new people. Despite these precautions, we're mindful to ensure that conditions are in place to optimize the dogs' welfare that include: the room is swept and prepped to ensure there are no dropped staples or leftover food on the floor, overcrowding dog-handler teams is prevented by restricting the number of students visiting each dog-handler team, providing a comfort mat and water for dogs, monitoring room temperature, and restricting the duration of visits that dogs are working (one hour is sufficient given the busy and stimuli rich context of a school).

Therapy dog provides a link to connect students

Source: Freya L. L. Green Photography; used with permission

Dogs Are Social Catalysts

One of the key outcomes that arises when students interact with therapy dogs is that they often become connected to the other students at their station — the dogs serve to anchor students, hold their attention, and provide a topic of discussion. Guided by the handler, students are asked about their own pets and about their life at school and invariably, the conversation shifts to students talking among themselves. This notion of animals acting as a "social glue" of sorts is well documented in the human-animal interaction literature.

Dogs Provide a Conduit for Students to Express Emotions

As we're now in our 14th year on campus, we've had ample opportunity to witness how therapy dogs serve as a conduit for students to express emotion. Certainly, joy is the predominant emotion that we see — an immediate smile upon entering the room where the therapy dogs await visitors. We also see therapy dogs elicit tears too — perhaps providing a safe landing pad for sadness to emerge. The dogs might remind students of pets they've lost and of life back home, should they be attending school far from home, and the dogs encourage a sort of mindful moment where the stressors of the world are pushed away, creating space for emotions to surface.

Certainly, there are a number of complexities involved in bringing a group of therapy dogs to a public school and careful thought, attention, and preparation are required to ensure such visits unfold safely. Schools seeking to enhance and enrich students' experiences, especially around stress-reduction and the building of a sense of community, are encouraged to liaise with a local therapy dog agency in their area.