Stress and burnout, Pet Therapy in Wales helps ambulance staff: Dill's story

By Cristiano Antonino On Mar 7, 2023

In Mid Wales the Ambulance Service has welcomed Dill, its first therapy dog. A solution to the increasing stress and burnout that is affecting ambulance crews as elsewhere in the world

Border collie Dill and Katie McPheat-Collins, head of the Central Wales Emergency Medical Services

The handler and dog pair have in fact joined the Oscar Kilo 9 (OK9) wellness and trauma therapy programme, a first in the UK.

OK9 was launched in 2019 by the National Police Wellbeing Service, which aims to develop local police welfare dog services to make them available to all forces wishing to introduce a dog as part of their welfare offering.

Dill passed the assessments set out by OK9 and met all the criteria to become a welfare and trauma therapy dog for the Trust.

Katie said: ‘For the past six years Dill has been, and still is, an operational search and rescue dog with SARDA South Wales and is a member of the Central Beacons Mountain Rescue Team.

However, his extremely gentle and calm nature and affinity with people led to the recent assessment and subsequent role within the Trust.”

Dill’s integration is part of a wider programme of work to improve the health and wellbeing of staff and volunteers, providing a furry addition to the wider toolkit.

“Dill’s support can take the form of station visits to help with morale and stress, presence during debriefs or community engagement, especially when engaging with a young, elderly or vulnerable audience.”

The OK9 programme in Wales

Sergeant Garry Botterill, Wellbeing and Trauma Support Dog Project Manager at the National Police Wellbeing Service, said: ‘The OK9 programme has proved extremely popular within the Police and Fire Service, and the number of Wellbeing and Trauma Support Dogs has grown to over 175 in the last 18 months.

We are delighted to welcome the Welsh Ambulance Service into the programme so they can enjoy the many benefits of this structured, proven and effective welfare initiative.”

“All emergency services deal with traumatic events and highly stressful situations.

“Wellbeing Dogs help to provide relief to colleagues, especially after difficult incidents.

We have found that they help people talk more openly and, because the handler is a colleague trained in peer support, they listen effectively and can direct them to the appropriate support if needed.”

“I would like to thank Katie, Dill and the Welsh Ambulance Service for being the first in the ambulance service to pilot this programme and wish them every success.”

The Trust continues to explore other forms of animal therapy to help staff and volunteers when they have a difficult day.

An experiment that perhaps should be repeated in other countries, given the benefit it seems to bring.

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