Denver Health’s STEP program launched a Canine Assisted Therapy initiative in early 2023 that now includes three trained therapy dogs supporting adolescents in recovery from substance misuse. The program represents a deliberate effort to fold animal-assisted techniques into routine clinical services so teens can better engage with and complete scheduled therapy sessions. Coverage from Directrelief has highlighted this story.

The Canine Assisted Therapy initiative was not a brief pilot but a formally implemented addition to the STEP program. According to a Direct Relief account of the work, clinicians and program coordinators moved from occasional animal visits to a structured model in which the dogs are consistently available during clinical sessions. That formal start in early 2023 marked the transition from ad hoc involvement to integration within the program’s day-to-day operations.

Financial backing was central to that transition. Grants from Direct Relief, supplemented by support from Eli Lilly and Company, enabled the STEP program to expand clinical programming and to incorporate canine partners into the clinical workflow. Those grants covered the organizational capacity needed to work with trained animals in a clinical environment rather than relying on informal arrangements, and they allowed staff to plan for the dogs’ scheduled presence during therapy. Reporting by Facebook offers additional detail on this case.

Three dogs serve in the program; one is named Pauletta and is identified in program materials as a therapy dog affiliated with Denver Health. The other two animals are part of the same three-dog team, all of which were incorporated deliberately into clinical sessions so adolescents could pursue therapeutic goals with additional emotional and physical support. Clinicians arranged for the dogs to be present during therapy sessions as part of treatment plans, allowing the animals to become a consistent component of the therapeutic setting rather than an occasional comfort.

Program staff reported that adding the canine team expanded the reach of behavioral health services. The total number of people recorded in association with the program is 800, a figure that program materials present as reflecting the broader scale at which the STEP program now operates. That number indicates that the canine-assisted work was folded into existing clinical offerings and contributed to the program’s overall capacity to engage and treat adolescents.

A video overview of the therapy program appears on Facebook and provides a visual account of how the dogs are integrated into clinical settings. The video shows staff and participants in sessions alongside the animals, offering a practical view of the dogs’ presence and demonstrating how clinicians include them in therapeutic routines. Credits for the video list Oliver Riley-Smith as director, producer and editor, situating the visual documentation alongside other program materials used to describe and evaluate the initiative. As covered by Linkedin, readers can explore more context around the event.

Victory Service Dogs is noted in program materials as an organization that specializes in training dogs for veterans. The reference to Victory Service Dogs highlights the region’s broader network of dog-training and service organizations and indicates the variety of training backgrounds and partnerships available to support clinically oriented canine teams. Program documents make clear that separate philanthropic and corporate grants were combined to support the STEP program’s capacity to work with trained animals within a clinical environment.

Clinical leaders at Denver Health emphasized the importance of consistent access to the dogs for teens in recovery. Rather than relying on occasional visits or volunteer drop-ins, the program was designed so therapy dogs could be scheduled into sessions when clinicians and coordinators believed an animal’s presence would support therapeutic goals. The formal integration that began in early 2023 thus created predictable opportunities for adolescents to interact with the dogs as part of their treatment.

According to the Direct Relief account, the initiative was aimed at helping adolescents not simply feel better in the moment but to complete therapy sessions more effectively. The presence of a trained therapy dog was positioned as one tool among many in clinicians’ toolkits to promote engagement, emotional regulation, and continuity of care. By embedding the dogs within scheduled clinical programming, staff intended to make that tool reliably available to the population they serve.

The combination of trained therapy animals, external grant funding and institutional practice underpins the program’s capacity. Direct Relief’s funding, along with grant support from Eli Lilly and Company, provided the financial foundation, while Denver Health’s clinical leadership and partnering training organizations provided the operational framework. Together, these elements allowed three therapy dogs to be incorporated into the STEP program’s offerings for adolescents in recovery.

Program materials and the Facebook video together document the addition of canine-assisted work to the STEP program’s clinical offerings, illustrating both the logistics of bringing animals into therapy rooms and the programmatic intent behind that choice. The materials situate the dogs as integrated partners in care — consistently available companions in sessions designed to help teens in recovery engage with treatment and move toward completion of scheduled programming.

Source

Original reporting: view the original article.