Local Volunteers Become National Therapy Animal Team Evaluators

Silent Sidekicks' Volunteers, Stacey Coventry and Elin MacKinnon, and Silent Sidekicks' Founder, Danielle Ireland McGuckin, became the newest Pet Partners Evaluators in the United States, this month. Team Evaluators are Pet Partners volunteers who are licensed to conduct the Pet Partners skills and aptitude evaluation required for registration as a therapy animal team. Evaluators play a critical role in ensuring safe and well-qualified Therapy Teams.

Pet Partners is the national leader in demonstrating and promoting positive human-animal therapy, activities and education. Nearly forty years since the organization's inception, the science that proves these benefits has become indisputable. Today, Pet Partners is the nation's largest and most prestigious nonprofit registering handlers of multiple species as volunteer teams providing Animal-Assisted Interactions.

Pet Partners teams interact with a wide variety of clients including veterans with PTSD, seniors living with Alzheimer's, students with literacy challenges, patients in recovery, people with intellectual disabilities and those approaching end of life. The impact of these interactions is felt one million times a year. Pet Partners' curriculum and continuing education for licensed instructors, evaluators, and handlers is the gold standard in the field.

It takes a lot of work and dedication to become a registered Pet Partners Team Evaluator. To qualify they successfully completed an intense six-week hybrid training program that included online coursework, discussion groups, and an in-person practicum in New Hampshire.

Danielle, Stacey, and Elin will be continuing volunteering their services through Silent Sidekicks, Maine's first Animal-assisted Therapy nonprofit organization, including hosting Pet Partners Evaluations across Maine.