Animal-Assisted Interventions & Interactions Certificate Program

The lack of a global or national overarching governing body for certification or accreditation of any AAIs has led to confusion, misinterpretation, and poor practices that involve AAIs. This program will guide students in the exploration of terminology, standards, ethics, competencies, organization-specific accreditations/certifications, best practices, program proposals, evaluations, and development. Students will learn to find and evaluate literature that impacts evidence-based practice. This program will guide students through skills, knowledge, and values. To add a specialty to practice without having the knowledge, skills, and values associated with that specialty can mean that the provider is operating outside their scope of practice. To ensure that providers of AAI remain within their boundaries of competence, this certificate program aligns with the competencies for Animal Assisted Interventions (AAIs) that were published and endorsed by the American Counseling Association in 2016 and subsequently by Pet Partners and Animal Assisted Interventions International. These competencies were founded on a Grounded Theory study designed to promote the three domains of competencies (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) and identified nine competency areas (Stewart, L.A., Chang, C. Y., Parker, L. K., & Grubbs, N., 2016).

These areas include:

1. Formal Animal Assisted Intervention (AAA, AAT, and AAE) Training
2. In-depth animal knowledge
3. Knowledge of existing ethics
4. Mastery of professional discipline-specific skills as a foundation prior to adding AAIs
5. Intentionality
6. Specialized skill set
7. Animal advocacy
8. Professional development
9. Professional values

While no one program or course can offer everything, this workshop seeks to satisfy the need for education in this area that aligns with the competencies.

This program will offer entry to intermediate-level foundational knowledge via live and recorded lectures from instructors and guest lecturers, reading, reflections, group discussions, and evaluation of the literature. Students will demonstrate competency with the completion of assignments, quizzes, interviews of professionals in the field, video evaluation of animal communication and behavior, and a capstone project specific to students' areas of interest, population, environment, and species.

In-person practicum will be offered as an additional certificate up to twice a year, in the Northeast and Southwest regions of the United States.

Ongoing Continuing Education:
As this certificate program proceeds, we will offer additional continuing education courses in several content areas, which will be open to certificants and the public.

• Healthcare, human service, educational professionals, and volunteers who wish to include animals in their work for goal-driven or recreational work
• Nurses, counselors, criminal justice professionals, teachers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers, and others that would like to work with animals in their practices with vulnerable populations
• Dog trainers who help prepare humans and their animals for animal-assisted interventions
• Anyone interested in advanced study in animal-assisted interventions and interactions but do not seek a graduate degree

Each program cohort begins in September. The program includes five consecutive 6-week courses in the following areas and is co-taught by Melissa Winkle, Amy (Johnson) Binder, and well-respected guest lecturers. Each course must be completed in sequential order.

All courses will use one textbook: Handbook on Animal Assisted Therapy (5th Edition), edited by Aubrey Fine, ISBN: 978-0128153956

The instructors and lecturers in these certificate courses are credentialed with various professional credentialing bodies and the program may offer professional CEUs for the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC), National Association for Social Workers (NASW), American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) and the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CPDT).

University of North Florida Division of Continuing Education CEUs are also available to participants.

The instructors are active healthcare and human service professionals who have been in practice and have included AAIs for 41 combined years. They have been teaching AAIs at the university level since 2002, and AAI certificate programs since 2007. They have chosen UNF to launch their updated curriculum which includes several well-respected guest lecturers.

Amy (Johnson) Binder

Dr. Amy Binder, EdD, MA, MAT, LPC, CPDT-KA, UW-AAB, is a Licensed Professional Counselor and certified dog trainer. She founded (2005) and directs the non-profit, Teacher’s Pet: Dogs and Kids Learning Together, which pairs at-risk and adjudicated youth with harder-to-adopt shelter dogs for the benefit of both. Additionally, she piloted an apprenticeship program in Detroit bringing homeless youth into a city animal shelter as well as developed an education program for inmate workers at a municipal shelter. Previously, she developed and directed Oakland University’s online Animal Assisted Intervention Certificate Program and directed its Center for Human Animal Interventions for over 14 years. She is the Competencies and Ethics chair of the American Psychological Association Human Animal Interactions Division 17 and a Topics Editor for the journal Veterinary Sciences. She has published several journal articles and book chapters as well as presented internationally on the topic of Human Animal Interactions and Animal Assisted Interventions.

Melissa Y. Winkle

Melissa Y. Winkle OTR/L, FAOTA, CPDT-KA is an occupational therapist and a Certified Professional Dog Trainer. She is President of Dogwood Therapy Services, an occupational therapy private practice and dog training facility in New Mexico, USA. Melissa is a founding member and current President of the European-based organization, Animal Assisted Intervention International. She has been involved with Oakland University, Center for Human Animal Interventions since 2014 in several capacities. Melissa is a practitioner, researcher, and writer and speaks internationally on disability, integrated community-based program development, animal-assisted interventions, and service dogs. She has published a series of books titled Professional Applications of Animal Assisted Interventions, available on Amazon.

Read more about whether your dog would make a suitable co-therapist in this article: Considerations for Selection, Evaluation and Suitability for Animal-Assisted Therapy
Winkle, M., Johnson, A., & Mills, D. (2020). Dog Welfare, Well-Being and Behavior: Considerations for Selection, Evaluation and Suitability for Animal-Assisted Therapy. Animals, 10(11), 2188.