My name is Rebeccah and I am an Honors student in UABs Baccalaureate Nursing Program (http://www.uab.edu/nursing/student-information/acad-prog/honors-and-scholars-programs/nursing-honors-program). As an Honors student I am participating in service-learning by partnering with a local community organization and collaborating on how to meet a need that they have but for whatever reason, be it a shortage of manpower, or time, or other, they may not be able to accomplish at the current time. This need then becomes the student's project. In order to get the word out about these wonderful agencies and the time we put in to working our various projects, we were asked to do a blog. The agency that I have partnered with is Hand-In-Paw(http://www.handinpaw.org/). Hand-In-Paw is an agency that is located in Birmingham and was founded in 1996. The Hand-In-Paw volunteers visit over 50 different places including libraries, schools, nursing homes, hospitals, and more. Sometimes one therapy team will visit and other times multiple teams will join forces. Each individual team is made up of an animal and a handler. Animals have the ability to facilitate a person's recovery by causing physiologic changes in the body by calming a person or just being a non-judgemental friend. There's many benefits to an animal's presence. Hand-In-Paw assists by making animals available to children, patients, elderly, and others who would benefit from animal visits. Being involved in healthcare settings, there is always a concern about infection control measures and safety related to the animals, the patient/residents/children, and the handler. My service learning project is to observe and evaluate measures taken in these areas. This information is useful as a third party perspective. By sharing my adventure of observing animals in action (so to speak) I hope you will be able to see the importance of our furry friends being included in the healing process for many individuals. Enjoy!
-Rebeccah M Pemberton
