Animal Guardians

Animal Guardians has now received over 300 referrals from across Scotland about its groundbreaking free education programme, which helps children nurture empathy and compassionate behaviour towards all animals, and in turn, people too.

We support children to improve their relationship with animals; children can be referred for a number of reasons including;

• Teased or frightened an animal
• Physically harmed an animal
• Rough handling of an animal
• Unable to understand an animal’s emotions and its behaviour
• Unable to respect an animal’s space and boundaries
• Cut whiskers/fur off an animal
• Witnessed harm to an animal
• Killed an animal
• At risk of harming an animal
• Removed wildlife from its home

Developed to help children who are showing concerning behaviours towards animals, the programme comprises of approximately 10 weekly one-to-one sessions with one of the Society’s youth engagement officers.  Through adaptable games, activities and discussion, children improve their knowledge and understanding of animal emotions, needs and the responsibilities involved in caring for all animals.

Animal Guardians has already received an initial evaluation through collaboration with the University of Edinburgh. The research findings show that children who completed Animal Guardians had significant improvements in:

• Their knowledge of animal welfare needs.
• Their belief in animal sentience.
• Recognition and understanding of human and animal emotions.
• Empathetic responses to animals.

We have expanded Animal Guardians and can now offer our pioneering programme to children aged 3-16 years living in over 70% of local authorities across Scotland.

If you have concerns about a young person’s behaviour towards animals, please contact us to make a referral.

Curriculum for excellence

Did you know our Animal WISE programme links in with many areas of the Curriculum for Excellence? We want all pupils to be responsible citizens and our workshops encourage everyone to work in teams and demonstrate that they can be effective
contributors.

Through our use of robotics, games, quizzes, real stories and role play our unique Animal WISE strategy truly covers so many subject areas.

Download our curriculum links sheet and find out how we can help every class become Scotland’s Animal Guardian.

Download

Incredible impact

Our ongoing collaborative research with the University of Edinburgh helps us ensure that our animal welfare education workshops are effective. We have published research that shows by teaching animal welfare you can have a significant impact on increasing a child’s knowledge about animals, positive attitudes towards animals and influence a child’s belief that animals have feelings.