Emotional Support
Our Community Dogs offer military children constant comfort during transition periods and parental deployment. Handlers use trauma-informed techniques to help pupils process difficult emotions, fostering courage and confidence.
Military children experience unique pressures, such as frequent moves, parental deployments, and ever-changing school environments. These transitions bring emotional and academic challenges not encountered by most civilian families.
Our pioneering Support Paws programme brings Community Dogs into schools, providing tailored support that goes far beyond standard school dog activities. We offer an evidence-based approach, developed precisely for the realities of armed forces life, addressing resilience, wellbeing, and belonging for military dependents.
Programme Overview
Our Community Dogs aren’t classroom pets; they are highly trained assistance animals, selected for their suitability to meet the nuanced needs of children in military families. Working with education staff, these dogs provide stability and consistent companionship—helping children adapt to new schools and cope with a parent’s absence. Each dog’s training combines therapeutic, academic, and social interventions, with input from both teachers and military support specialists.
Academic Resilience
Academic performance flourishes when stress and anxiety are managed. Whether helping children read aloud, settle into new classrooms, or tackle schoolwork, our dogs provide positive encouragement and a calming influence.
Social Connection
Military children often feel isolated after repeated moves. Our Community Dogs increase confidence, facilitate new friendships, and help weave newcomers into the fabric of the school community.
Programme Implementation
We carefully match each school with the right Community Dog and handler, evaluating both the needs of the children and the environment. Our staff training is thorough, and ongoing support ensures best practice in mental health, safeguarding, and animal welfare. We use robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks to measure and continually improve impact.
Support Paws sets a new benchmark. We build community partnerships, empower schools, and highlight the hidden struggles of military families—moving well beyond the limits of conventional dog-in-schools schemes.
Get Involved with Support Paws
Whether you’re a school leader, potential supporter, or partner organisation, you can help us extend the reach of Support Paws—bringing lasting transformation to military children nationwide.
