Recorded Webinar- Emotional Support Animal Letters: Competencies for Clinicians

Many professional counselors and the general public are enthusiastic and curious about the role of animals in mental health. In particular, professional counselors face a growing demand for professional consensus guidelines to ethically and appropriately respond to emotional support animal (ESA) documentation requests. In this session, the presenter will clarify helper animal taxonomy and discuss current literature, laws, policies, risks, and benefits relevant to making professional decisions surrounding the sensitive issue of ESAs in client wellness.

Objectives for this training include:
1. Describe the core concepts that characterize healthy and wellness-promoting human-animal relationships.
2. Identify and differentiate among Emotional Support Animals, Service Animals, and Therapy Animals.
3. Identify and describe relevant government policies related to Emotional Support Animals.
4. Discuss relevant ethics, best practices, and scope of practice considerations relevant to Emotional Support Animal Letters and healthy human-animal bonds.
5. Understand appropriate decision-making processes and documentation relevant to Emotional Support Animal Requests.
-
Courses expire 30 days after purchase.
-


Dr. Leslie Stewart (and Star)

Leslie Stewart, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical professional counselor and associate professor in Idaho State University’s Department of Counseling. Her areas of expertise include animal assisted interventions in counseling and supervision, trauma-informed counselor preparation, Motivational Interviewing, and counselor training with experiential and expressive modalities.

At Idaho State University, Dr. Stewart directs and instructs the Certificate Program in Animal Assisted Interventions, offers AAIs in her clinical supervision, and incorporates AAIs in her teaching across the CACREP Core. Dr. Stewart contributed to the development and publication of competencies and standards of practice in several organizations: she is the primary author of the American Counseling Association's Animal Assisted Therapy Competencies, and a contributing author to the American Psychological Association's Ethical Best Practice Standards for Human-Animal Interactions, Animal Assisted Interventions International's Standards of Practice for AAIs, and the Pet Partners Tiered Handler Competencies.

Dr. Stewart serves as a member of the Pet Partners Human-Animal Bond Advisory Board and the Daily Paws advisory board. Dr. Stewart shares her life with several species of animal family members including dogs, rabbits, mice, a cat, and a ball python. In her free time, Dr. Stewart volunteers at a local zoo that houses injured or unreleasable native wildlife species and enjoys hiking, camping, kayaking, and wildlife viewing in the beautiful Rocky Mountain wilderness.

Remember Oklahoma Counseling Institute members save every day!

Non-members pay $20 for access to recorded webinars.
OCI members pay only $12


Join The Oklahoma Counseling Institute today by clicking here!
The Oklahoma Counseling Institute™ is an approved continuing education provider for Oklahoma LPCs and LMFTs, LADCs and CADCs (Provider # 20240018), and LCSWs (Provider # 202400088).