As society recovers over time from the effects of Covid-19, Animal Assisted Intervention such as our Community Dog service offers an innovative route to overcome some of the direct and indirect consequences of the pandemic. This may include the following:
· Social isolation: Helping people to develop the confidence to access the community again.
· Carer resilience: Carers’ personal resilience may have been stretched through this period. This might be because they have needed to provide extra care themselves and because of losing the relief and support usually provided by other services. Community Dog can help them to replenish their personal reserves and focus on their own needs.
· Fear and anxiety: For many, activities like shopping that used to be routine activities may bring greater fear and anxiety. There will also be new ‘rules’ and norms to follow which some will find stressful. Others will have become dependent on others for things they used to do for themselves.
· Social engagement: For some who have got out of the habit of connecting with others during lockdown, re-engaging may be difficult. This might be added to by the new ‘norms’ which may be difficult to understand, or need a bit of practice.
· Mental health issues: Some people who have found lockdown challenging may need a new and different focus to support their recovery.
· Lost skills/confidence: Lots of people will have spent long periods at home and may have lost the skills and confidence they had previously developed in activities like doing their own shopping or using public transport.
How Community Dog is adapting to COVID-19
In light of Covid-19, we have introduced some key changes to our working practices. This is to ensure the health and safety of all participants. We have recently returned to ‘in person’ sessions and our revised protocols embrace social distancing and strict hygiene arrangements. Where local restrictions mean that we are unable to work in person, a range of virtual therapy approaches can support the client through this period.
Over the past months we’ve developed a range of techniques to continue to support new and existing Community Dog clients through virtual dog-related engagement. These include:
Virtual individual Community Dog sessions
Here the Community Dog and Handler link up with the client via video. The session involves the client engaging with the dog ‘on camera’ in tailored activities aimed at supporting their individual goals. Importantly, this enables the connection with the Community Dog to be maintained through the period of restriction. During these difficult times it also supports general wellbeing and can continue progress towards their overall goal. You can see a video here about our virtual dog walks.
Group virtual therapy sessions
We have worked with small groups as part of our dementia programme, hosting virtual ‘dog bingo’ and other interactive games sessions. Through our partner organisations we are able to link people together in their own homes or in care homes. For dog bingo, participants receive their bingo cards and play bingo together. The Community Dog ‘picks’ the numbers remotely. This short film shows how dog bingo is supporting people with dementia and their carers.