SSCI 306:Final Project

Advocacy on Animal
assisted therapy
approaches.
By: Katherine Havican
 Animal-assisted therapies (AAT)
• This is an approach to mental health care that incorporate
animals into the psychotherapy process.
• This emphasizes the bond created during human-animal
interactions.
• This can result in emotional recovery and positive
psychological transformation that can occurs when the
relationship between an individual and the therapy animal
grows.
• This is not used widely throughout our world today and
is sadly not used within my community making this topic
important for me to advocate on.
• There are various benefits such as improving balance, fine-
motor skills, reduced anxiety, reduced blood pressure, and
more.
 Animal-Assisted Therapy

I chose to focus on this topic as

Animal-Assisted therapy while
being a problem in my
community, is definitely a
global issue being addressed.
it is geared not only towards
my degree focus but Is
something I feel strongly
about due to its benefits being
ignored in our world today.
 I want to advocate for donations for
https://www.1fur1.org/donate-to-help-animal-assiste
d-programs/
Initial Advocacy .

Plan: Advocacy A
pproach #1
Original fundraising goal of $200 moved to $100.

Originally, I was going to hand out both flyers and

pamphlets but moved my focus to prompting this
cause through making pamphlets and handing them
out locally.
 I have realized that meeting my fundraising goals is a lot harder
than I thought. While I still has a goal to raise money, I moved
my focus away from the money amount and on the potential
visibility the fundraiser is getting online.

Initial
Advocacy Plan: I moved my advocacy for 1FUR1 from twitter where I wasn't
getting exposure of donations to Facebook.

Advocacy
Approach #2 I reached out to a local business to do a local change drive but
have had no luck due to the human-societies already doing this to
support their businesses.

Continued to hand out pamphlets locally to advocate on the topic.

Implementing Advocacy
Plan
Revisions- I had to make many of revisions
to my plan from my fundraising goal, ways
to get my advocacy out locally, and
platforms used to fundraise.
Challenges- I feel this project had many of
challenges, I had to change many of my plan
throughout this project and it was hard to
reach individuals online.
Trying to advocate online was harder than I
expected, as I don't use social media often.
Handing out pamphlets was easier than I
thought as I didn't expect many to accept
them.
 Future Directions
I REALLY HOPE FOR ANIMAL-
ASSISTED THERAPY EVOLVES, AS
THERE ARE LIMITED AMOUNTS OF
THESE THERAPIES BEING USED IN
THE WORLD TODAY.
I WANT OTHERS TO ADDRESS AND
ACKNOWLEDGE THE
POSITIVE BENEFITS THIS CAN HAVE
FOR A WIDE VARIETY OF
INDIVIDUALS IN MENTAL
HEALTH FIELDS AND MORE. I PLAN
TO CONTINUE TO SPREAD
AWARENESS ON THIS TOPIC.
 pick two ways Go over results
go over what I
to address issue Make pamplet of advocay and
Timeline Of want to
advocate for
and goals.
(fundraising/
pamphlets).
and print out
copies.
fundraise for
1FUR1 on
facebook.
if goals were
met.

Advocay:
9 Oct. 23 Oct. 6 Nov. 20 Nov.

2 Oct. 16 Oct. 30 Oct. 13 Nov. 27 Nov.

find 2
sources relating hand out revise plan
research and to my pamplets such as money
find fundraiser advocacy. locally at price goal and
geared twards chopper, gearing more
animal-assisted library, and twords
therapy. walmart. spreading
awareness.
 My Facebook advocacy for 1FUR1 was shared
15 times.

My Facebook advocacy for 1FUR1 raised $80

towards the foundation.

I distributed 50 pamphlets at Walmart.

I distributed 20 pamphlets at the library.

Outcomes:
I distributed 40 flyers at price chopper.
 • Stern, C., & Chur-Hansen, A. (2013, February 27).
Sources: Methodological considerations in designing and evaluating
animal-assisted interventions. Animals : an open access
journal from MDPI.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4495515/
• Team, G. E. (2019, January 8). Animal-assisted
psychotherapy. Animal–Assisted Psychotherapies.
https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/ani
mal-assisted-therapy