Animals on Prescription: The Effect of Animal Handling Sessions on Student Wellbeing in a Further and Higher Education Establishment

Animal Assisted Interventions (AAI) create opportunities for humans and non-human animals to interact for human benefit. Many AAI studies focus on the use of domestic species within prearranged and specific environments. There is less research looking at human benefits obtained as a result of interactions with a selection of species or within non-formalised settings and this was the area that “Animals on Prescription” (AoP) investigated.
AoP offered students at a Further and Higher Education establishment the opportunity to interact with a variety of animal species during bi-weekly sessions which could be attended as frequently or infrequently as desired. Sessions were promoted to individuals with self-reported low feelings of wellbeing through posters and postcards located within wellbeing support offices at the establishment. All attending individuals completed a questionnaire to state their feeling of wellbeing prior to the handling session as well as any effects of the session as a whole. Over the course of the academic year 2017-2018 a total of 36 sessions ran with 162 questionnaire completed. AoP was deemed successful; individuals provided positive feedback indicating sessions were beneficial for increasing student wellbeing.