To what extent do therapy dogs influence children’s social emotional mental health (SEMH) in schools?

Currently, there is an alarming increase in children experiencing social emotional mental health (SEMH) difficulties in the United Kingdom (UK) that must be addressed to enable children to thrive. One approach that is rising in popularity to address this crisis is using therapy dogs in school to improve children’s SEMH. Therefore, it is essential to determine the extent to which therapy dogs influence children’s SEMH before using therapy dogs is widely recommended. There appears to be emerging evidence that therapy dogs influence children’s SEMH to a large extent as they impact a range of SEMH outcomes in various populations. However, the evidence base is small and caveated with several significant methodological limitations and disjointed theoretical underpinnings. Therefore, further higher quality research is needed to rigorously investigate therapy dogs’ influence on children’s SEMH before they are implemented in schools. Ethical considerations are raised that therapy dogs in schools may threaten the safeguarding of children and animal welfare. Subsequently, educational psychologists’ (EPs) role in advising schools on therapy dogs is highlighted and the possibility for EPs to contribute to the evidence base and lobby for clear legislation and policy for therapy dogs in schools is considered.