On the 18th March Kirsty Liddiard, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education and iHuman, launched the findings from The Canine Care Project. The Canine Care Project explored the experiences of disabled young people who have assistance dogs. The project collaborated with Canine Partners, a registered charity that transforms the lives of disabled people through partnering them with assistance dogs. The Research Team included academic researchers, Canine Partners collaborators, and Sally Whitney, a disabled young co-researcher who has a Canine Partner.
The project found that assistance dogs improve feelings of loneliness, anxiety, isolation and fear for disabled young people.
An overwhelming majority said that their assistance dog made them feel more optimistic, and many of those surveyed said their canine companion had helped them to embrace their disability.
You can read The Canine Care Project Report here, and watch its animated film here.
To read about the project in the Sheffield Star, please see here.
