Therapy Pets · Impact Dashboard

–Survey responses

–Mapped locations

–Returning for 2+ visits

–Avg happiness score

–Avg anxiety score

–Avg optimism score

The intervention

How therapy pets help people

Trained therapy pets and their volunteer handlers visit people in schools, hospitals and prisons. Each visit is a calm, friendly encounter with an animal — stroking a dog, watching it relax, chatting with its handler — and it is exactly these small, undemanding moments that do the work. Contact with a gentle animal lowers stress and anxiety in the moment, encourages conversation, and gives people something positive to look forward to between visits.

In schools, visits help children relax, build confidence and often anchor a calm reading or wellbeing session. In hospitals, they bring comfort and companionship to patients away from home for long stretches. In prisons, they offer rare, non-judgemental company that supports wellbeing and rehabilitation.

The programme is deliberately repeated — we track first, second and third-or-later visits, because the benefits compound as relationships form.

Measurement

How we measure impact

After a visit, people complete a short survey covering three wellbeing measures, each scored 0–100:

Happiness — how positive people feel overall. Higher is better.
Anxiety — how worried or tense they feel. Lower is better.
Optimism — how hopeful they feel about the future. Higher is better.

We also record age and each respondent's home postcode, linked to the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) — a national measure of area deprivation from 1 (most deprived) to 10 (least). It shows whether the programme reaches every community, not just the wealthiest.

Use the filters in the Impact tab to cut results by age group, number of visits and setting.

Reach

Where visits reach

Each marker is one survey response. Colours show the setting where the visit took place.

School Hospital Prison

Frequency of engagement

How many visits respondents had attended

Age of respondents

Distribution across ten-year age bands

Deprivation profile (IMD)

Respondents by area deprivation decile — 1 is most deprived, 10 least

Insight

What the reach data shows

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– responses in view

How to read this

This is a point-in-time survey: respondents completed it after attending a therapy pet visit, so the happiness, anxiety and optimism scores below are snapshots, not before-and-after measures. To get as close as the data allows to "did the visits change anything?", we use two lenses: how scores move with the number of visits (dose-response, below) and how respondents compare with national benchmarks. Rising wellbeing with more visits is the signature you would expect from a genuine effect — suggestive rather than definitive, and worth confirming with before/after questions in future surveys.

Dose-response check

Wellbeing by number of visits

Average scores for people on their first, second, or third-or-later visit. Follows the current filters.

Happiness

Average: –

Higher is better · dashed line = England average (ONS)

Anxiety

Average: –

Lower is better · dashed line = England average (ONS)

Optimism

Average: –

Higher is better