School Pals
Therapy dogs in schools can significantly benefit pupils' emotional and mental well-being, helping to reduce stress, improve their social skills, and enhance learning.
Our therapy dogs are friendly and calm and support pupils and students so they can interact together.
Jack and Pals Therapy Dogs can listen to an individual child read a book from the school library or class book shelf . Our volunteer member can also read a book for pleasure to a small group of children or individual child.
All our volunteers must be accompanied by a member of staff at all times.
Benefits of therapy
Dogs in schools:
Emotional and Mental Health:
Therapy dogs can provide comfort and reduce anxiety, improving students' emotional regulation and overall mental health. Our volunteers are not trained in this field but rely on their therapy dogs working their magic.
Developing Social Skills:
Pupils can learn empathy, social cues, and appropriate interpersonal skills through interacting with our dogs.
Supporting Learning:
The presence of a therapy dog can create a calming environment, making it easier for students to focus and engage in reading and discussions.
Reading for pleasure:
Therapy dogs can be used in reading to help students overcome social and emotional barriers to learning, improving literacy and confidence.
Caring and being responsible:
Involving students in the care of a school dog can teach them about responsibility, caring, and sharing.
Fears and Allergies:
Pupils who have dog fear can work with our dogs to over come them. Schools do need to be aware of any potential pupils who are allergic to dogs and have covered this in their risk assessment of our dogs visiting.
Risk Assessment:
Schools should prepare their own risk assessment and ensure the safety of pupils when meeting our therapy dogs. We do have a sample risk assessment which will be sent out with our other material once a visit is confirmed.