Recommendations for Transdisciplinary Professional Competencies and Ethics for Animal-Assisted Therapies and Interventions

AAI is a transdisciplinary field that has grown exponentially in recent decades. This growth has not always been synergistic across fields, creating a need for more consistent language and standards, a call for which many professionals in the field have made. Under the umbrella of human-animal interactions (HAI) is animal-assisted interventions (AAIs), which have a more goal-directed intention with animals who have been assessed for therapeutic, educational, or vocational work. The current article offers a brief history and efficacy of HAI, describes the limitations and gaps within the field and recommends a new set of competencies and guidelines that seek to create some of the needed common language and standards for AAI work to address these limitations.

Automated summary

AAI is a rapidly growing transdisciplinary field that requires more consistent language and standards. Animal-assisted interventions have specific goals within human-animal interactions, such as therapy, education, or vocational work. This article recommends a new set of competencies and guidelines to address the limitations within the field.