“With the current lockdown we decided to do something
a bit more innovative and different to encourage positive well-being into our
service.”
Animal therapy or
animal assisted therapy, refers to various services using animals to help
people with specific physical or mental health conditions.
The goal of animal
assisted therapy is to alleviate or help people cope with some symptoms of
various conditions where possible. Such as relaxation or anxiety. Animal
therapy builds on a concept called human-animal bond, which describes people’s
desires to interact with and relate to animals. For many people, by interacting
with an animal they can form a bond which can produce a calming influence.
The duckling
hatching experience was carried out at 36 Park Drive Harrow during a time that
the residents were approaching the ending of an isolation period, due to some
individuals testing positive to the Covid-19 virus. The mood in the service
during this time was generally low and staff morale depleted.