2019 Annual Conference

Adult Development

Roundtable (45 minutes)

Our purpose will be to discuss ways therapy dogs are being utilized within personal and professional settings. We propose a shift in focus from using therapy dogs as an alternative technique to a primary technique. Specifically, we will discuss ways therapy dogs can enhance adults’ mental, physical, and emotional development.

Given the wide range of contexts therapy dogs can be of benefit, the target audience will be varied. The targeted audience would include, but is not limited to adult and continuing educators, healthcare providers, and mental health clinicians, all of which work in a variety of settings where therapy dogs may be utilized.

Learning outcomes will include differentiating between the types of working dogs (therapy, service, facility, emotional support), understanding various actions adults take when working with such dogs (animal assisted activities, animal assisted education, animal assisted therapy), providing specific examples/scenarios from the authors’ experiences working in the field, and applying the incorporation of dogs into settings such as those previously mentioned.
For example, what contexts might one use animal assisted education? What are examples of mental, physical, and emotional benefits of spending time with therapy dogs in various settings? Finally, what are strategies for creating awareness of the use of therapy dogs?

Those who are holistically healthy are able to live in harmony with themselves, others, and their environments (Freidmann, Son, & Saleem, 2015), therefore it is crucial to consider ways to improve and maintain such functioning. Our intention is for the audience to develop an awareness of the interconnectedness among mental, physical, and emotional development, and overall health and well-being. Having an unhealthy concept in one type of development tends to negatively affect other types of development. The authors will address ways therapy dogs can be utilized in a variety of settings as a form of prevention, working toward improving overall sustainability of wellness in personal and professional settings. The impact of this innovation is already being shown through foundational research of therapy dogs as alternatives to other sustainability techniques, however, the authors will argue that the use of therapy dogs should be a primary technique for enhancing overall health and well-being. Finally, we will delve into what could become of dogs in professional settings. It is important that humanity as a whole begins to take responsibility and action regarding humans’ overall well-being. The authors will argue that therapy dogs are an ideal first choice in doing so.

Our session will be conducted by a Clinical Mental Health Counseling Master’s student and a faculty member in Adult Learning and Development at Cleveland State University. We will provide objectives and intended outcomes with participants, and encourage roundtable participants to create a list of potential discussion topics that relate to therapy dogs and wellness sustainability. Participants will be asked to reflect upon their insights and feelings on the topic, as well as offer advice regarding future research.