It’s easy to think of service animals as accommodations for employees living with physical or sensory disabilities, like blindness. However, they are also utilized by those living with mental, emotional, or psychiatric difficulties. We review service animals for emotional support or mental health.
What are emotional support or psychiatric service dogs for?
Service dogs that are considered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as ‘reasonable accommodations’ are animals that are trained to perform a task for persons with disabilities and are not emotional support animals. Emotional support animals, while being hugely beneficial to millions of people, are not considered true service dogs and are therefore not covered under ADA’s laws. However, service dogs for mental health or psychiatric conditions are and have definitive differences.
Mental health service dogs support people by alerting the handler to panic attacks, reminding them to take medication, or assisting with anxiety. The ADA defines a mental health service dog as ‘any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.’
Emotional support animals can be very helpful to some individuals, but they are not covered by the ADA, which describes them as "emotional support animals, comfort animals, and therapy dogs."
Types of service dogs for mental health
Examples of service dogs for mental health include psychiatric service dogs, seizure alert service dogs, and service dogs for autism.
Psychiatric service dogs will usually assist with tasks like managing anxiety or PTSD, alerting the handler to panic attacks, and reminding them to take medication.
Seizure alert dogs will remind their handler about essential medication and alert them to oncoming seizures.
Service dogs for autism help with anxiety and provide focus for handlers to rely on in stressful or unfamiliar situations. Service dogs for autism can also help break the pattern of repetitive behaviors that some people living with autism experience.
Mental health service dogs also provide support and companionship, but their purpose and training go way beyond that.
Whichever type of service dog your employee uses, remember that service dogs are almost always exceptionally well-trained and under control. Under the ADA’s guidelines, you don’t have to accommodate a poorly housebroken service animal in your workplace, but as they are so carefully trained and well-socialized you’re unlikely to come across this problem. A more likely problem is acclimating the service dog to other members of your team who are either afraid of or allergic to dogs. A good way around this is to chat with the rest of your team at a high-level first, and consider your options.
The ADA’s guidelines state that you must consider and provide reasonable accommodation when an employee discloses their disability to you unless the accommodation is undue hardship, and this includes service animals.
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