AAI 3 | Implementing Animal Assisted Interventions with Diverse Populations

Monday, April 13, 2026, 6:30 PM–8:00 PM ET through Monday, May 11, 2026, 6:30 PM–7:30 PM ET

Online via Zoom

Continuing Education Offered

• 7.5 hours regular asynchronous online
• 4 hours regular live interactive online

Description

This course pulls together aspects of the previous courses to focus on practical applications of Animal Assisted Interventions. It explores the wide range of programs involving animal partners across fields of human services including health care, education and social work activities with diverse human populations such as people with disabilities and/or trauma, veterans, and urban youth. Animal Assisted Therapy approaches integrating evidence-based and best-practice methods with animal partners are explained through specific case examples with diverse youth including refugee, LGBTQ, and sexual abuse survivors using individual, family and group modalities. Participants learn how to create culturally sensitive treatment or lesson plans that include animal partners and effectively verbalize the clinical meaning of animal/human interactions to further clients’ therapeutic goals. This course shares examples of how to track and evaluate progress, document sessions, and evaluate effectiveness. It also explores the need for further research in the field.

Objectives

1. List three examples of animal assisted services in the helping professions.
2. Describe specific programming concepts shared by practitioners in the field of AAI.
3. Describe theories and interpersonal practice methods that can be integrated with animal assisted therapy.
4. Develop a treatment or lesson plan for animal assisted therapy.
5. Describe examples of AAT and AAL interventions with diverse populations.
6. Apply concepts of cultural humility and cross-cultural social work to individual cases of animal assisted therapy.
7. Describe the importance of meaning making in animal assisted therapy.
8. Give examples of how meaning is made of animal-human interactions in therapy.
9. Apply animal assisted interventions to social-emotional learning activities.
10. Explain the importance of documentation, progress tracking, and evaluation.
11. Identify areas for further research in the field of animal assisted interventions.
12. Integrate course knowledge with practice experience.

Agenda

Monday, April 13, 2026

• 6:30pm–8:00pm Panel: Animal Assisted Intervention programs and methods across disciplines

Monday, April 20, 2026

• 6:30pm–8:00pm Integrated Animal Assisted Therapy and the Art of Meaning Making, discussion of assignment

Monday, May 11, 2026

• 6:30pm–7:30pm Assignment/Synthesis

Instructor

Laura Sanders, LMSW, ACSW

CE Approval Statement

The University of Michigan School of Social Work, provider #1212, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. The University of Michigan School of Social Work maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 5/15/2023-5/15/2026.

Social workers participating in this course will receive 11.5 general continuing education contact hours.

Please see the CE Policies page for more information about continuing education.