Wellbeing dog scheme going from strength to strength

Dozens of dogs are joining the ambulance service as part of a new wellbeing scheme to help staff who have experienced traumatic incidents.

The ‘GoodDOGs’ scheme at the East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST) uses support dogs to help colleagues – and is going from strength to strength.

Since its launch a year ago, the initiative has expanded to over 52 current approved dogs with more than 60 hoping to join the scheme.

The dogs are the pets of staff members and have been put through an assessment to become wellbeing dogs.

Once qualified, they are available to be booked to support colleagues’ wellbeing.

The focus of the scheme is to give staff a morale boost but they can also support staff who had experienced traumatic incidents.

A recent example was when GoodDOGs supported staff after a much-respected colleague had sadly died after an illness.

The rise in numbers of qualified dogs means that the dogs can head out on more jobs, including visiting staff at ambulance stations and accident and emergency departments aboard the Trust's Welfare Wagons.

GoodDOGs have also been used to provide new trainees with a morale boost during final assessment days.

The registered dogs include a greyhound named ‘Lennie’, an Alaskan Malamute cross named ‘Togo’, labradors named Hector and Ruger, a cocker spaniel named Douglas and the youngest dog of the scheme, Louie, the one-year-old Papillon.

The East of England Ambulance Service Charity is supporting this initiative and recently funded personalised jackets for the dogs.

Kirstie Wells is the GoodDOG project lead and handler of Lennie. She has taken on the project alongside her role as a Quality Improvement and Professional Standards Specialist at EEAST.

Kirstie says:

“GoodDOGs has been an amazing project to be involved with and it is growing fast.

“The enthusiasm of colleagues to support each other’s wellbeing is heartening.

“This gives us scope to expand the use of GoodDOGs and we have plans to introduce wellbeing walks.

“We have three assessors currently but are soon getting two more to help us work through the enquiries we have received.”

The assessments of the GoodDOGs are carried out by staff members at EEAST, overseen by the charity, Canine Concern Care Dogs.