Anyone have experience with an animal-assisted therapy organization in NYC?

January 4, 2010 11:38 AM

I want to be an animal-assisted therapist. I need to find AAT organizations in the New York City area that will take me on as a social work student intern. Have any leads?

I'm a first-year social work student who loathes her current internship placement and wants to make sure her second-year placement goes well. I've always been interested in working with children affected with autism; since I'm a huge animal lover and strongly believe in their therapeutic benefits, I'd love to join the two interests.

A lot of social work schools offer placements in the animal-assisted therapy field, but I don't think that my school, NYU, is one of them. I'm going to have to do some legwork in securing an AAT placement on my own, except that I'm having difficulty finding ones in the New York City area. Does anyone here have any experience with any that I can contact? I keep accidentally contacting organizations that only use volunteers, not therapists. I can keep doing that indefinitely until I find something, but I could use some guidance in my search.

I'm pretty sure this is a long shot, but I have a greater chance of finding an answer here than anywhere else.

posted by coffeeflavored to Work & Money (1 answer total)

Try calling the other Social Work schools in the city and see if they can offer any assistance. Perhaps your school's director of field education (or whoever it that oversees student's placements) knows people in equivalent positions in the other schools that he or she can call up for help as well.
posted by greta simone at 12:12 PM on January 4, 2010