Projects

Lort Smith has a legacy of showing compassion towards pets and people in their community. They do this by providing world-class animal healthcare and wellbeing services and advocating for the human-animal bond. Lort Smith’s Pet Therapy program is an example of this. Volunteers, accompanied by their own specially assessed pets, visit hospitals, aged-care facilities, disability services and other centres to improve the wellbeing of those experiencing illness, adversity, loneliness and provide relief to visiting family and facility staff.

About the pilot program

In 2018, a Parkville College staff member approached Lort Smith with the concept of introducing their pet therapy program into the Parkville Youth Justice Precinct. Well-designed animal assisted prison programs have been shown to reduce recidivism and equip offenders with social, life and employability skills (McDermott 2016). Lort Smith, the Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS) and Parkville College subsequently worked together to pilot having volunteer-dog teams visit juvenile offenders on remand or sentenced at Parkville College. The aim of the pilot was to collect preliminary evidence into the impact of dog presence in the precinct.

About the evaluation

Lort Smith commissioned our evaluation services to understand outcomes for young people on remand and sentenced at the facility as well as secondary beneficiaries such as Parkville youth workers and Lort Smith volunteers. The project involved data collection from various stakeholder groups including the young people, volunteers, observers and Lort Smith volunteers to tell a holistic story of the impact of the pet therapy program. The project also worked to align outcomes determined from the evaluation to those from the Department of Justice and Community Safety to demonstrate how the project fits into the broader outcomes for justice in Victoria.

Evaluation findings

The evaluation findings revealed outcomes for young people on remand or sentenced at Parkville College, Lort Smith volunteers and Parkville College staff. As a result of the pilot, young people experienced increased happiness and compassion, improved interactions and communication skills and improved self-regulation and engagement with educational activities. Volunteers experienced an increased sense of enrichment and staff experienced improved workplace satisfaction.

Critical success factors

The evaluation also revealed three critical success factors that contributed to the success of the pilot:

• Lort Smith volunteer neutrality in a non-neutral, often adversarial space helped young people feel more at ease and able to let their guard down.
• Given the volatility and institutionalised nature a youth justice facility often embodies, having volunteers who are flexible, open-minded, passionate and empathetic proved to be critical.
• Because of the unpredictable nature of the facility, it was important that visits were flexible and responsive to the day-to-day happenings.

References: McDermott, C. (2016), To explore animal therapeutics in the rehabilitation of youth in the juvenile justice system, Churchill Fellowship Report, pp. 1-47.