Animals in Social Work: Why and How They Matter

This collection of essays articulates theoretical and philosophical arguments, and advances practical applications, as to why animals ought to matter to social work, in and of themselves. It serves as a persuasive corrective to the current invisibility of animals in contemporary social work practice and thought.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Oct 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781137372291

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Animals in Social Work

Why and How They Matter

Edited by

Thomas Ryan

Editorial matter, introduction and selection © Thomas Ryan 2014 Chapters © Individual authors 2014

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

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The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as theuhvuhvubhu authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2014 by

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ISBN: 978–1–137–37228–4

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To Blanca, with love

To Thomas-Liam & Fiona, Jude & Paige, Immogen & Clayton, Mirabehn & Samantha, Nate, Ravelle & Indie, loves of my life

To Gran & Cha, with deepest gratitude

To Tess, Simone, Lucy Jayke & Clarabelle, for all those walks and companionship

As I love nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and winter, I love thee.

— Henry David Thoreau (1980, p. 285)¹

¹ Thoreau, H. D. (1980). A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

When we open our eyes to see the reality of another creature, and so learn to respect its being, that other creature may as easily be non-human. Those who would live virtuously, tradition tells us, must seek to allow each creature its own place, and to appreciate the beauty of the whole.

— Stephen R.L. Clark (1994, p. 30)¹

Let me enjoy the earth no less

Because the all-enacting Might

That fashioned forth it loveliness

Had other aims than my delight.

— Thomas Hardy (1924, p. 91)²

¹ Clark, S. R. L. (1994). Modern errors, ancient virtues. In A. Dyson & J. Harris (eds), Ethics and Biotechnology (pp. 13–32). London: Routledge.

² Hardy, T. (1924). Time’s Laughing Stocks. London: Macmillan.

Contents

Series Editors’ Preface

Acknowledgements

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Part I   The Why: Philosophical and Theoretical Explorations

1 Deep Ecological ‘Insectification’: Integrating Small Friends with Social Work

Fred H. Besthorn

2 The Meaning of Animals in Women’s Lives: The Importance of the ‘Domestic’ Realm to Social Work

Jan Fook

3 Integrative Health Thinking and the One Health Concept: Is Social Work All for ‘One’ or ‘One’ for All?

Cassandra Hanrahan

4 My Dog Is My Home: Increasing Awareness of Inter-Species Homelessness in Theory and Practice

Christine H. Kim and Emma K. Newton

5 Social Justice beyond Human Beings: Trans-species Social Justice

Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson

6 The Moral Priority of Vulnerability and Dependency: Why Social Work Should Respect Both Humans and Animals

Thomas Ryan

Part II   The How: Practical Applications

7 The Impact of Animals and Nature for Children and Youth with Trauma Histories: Towards A Neurodevelopmental Theory

Eileen Bona and Gail Courtnage

8 Animal-Assisted Therapy for Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Shanna L. Burke and Dorothea Iannuzzi

9 ‘How Is Fido?’: What the Family’s Companion Animal Can Tell You about Risk Assessment and Effective Interventions – If Only You Would Ask!

Lynn Loar

10 The Place and Consequence of Animals in Contemporary Social Work Practice

Maureen MacNamara and Jeannine Moga

11 No One Ever Asked Me That: The Value of Social Work Inquiry into the Human-Animal Bond

Nina Papazian

12 Stray Dogs and Social Work in Mauritius: An Analysis of Some Concerns and Challenges

Komalsingh Rambaree

13 Liquid Love – Grief, Loss, Animal Companions and the Social Worker

Adrienne Elizabeth Thomas

14 Domestic Violence and Companion Animal Welfare: The Issues, Risks and Implications for Practice

Deborah Walsh

Select Bibliography

Index

Series Editors’ Preface

This is a new book series for a new field of inquiry: Animal Ethics.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the ethics of our treatment of animals. Philosophers have led the way, and now a range of other scholars have followed, from historians to social scientists. From being a marginal issue, animals have become an emerging issue in ethics and in multidisciplinary inquiry.

In addition, rethinking the status of animals has been fuelled by a range of scientific investigations that have revealed the complexity of animal sentiency, cognition and awareness. The ethical implications of this new knowledge have yet to be properly evaluated, but it is becoming clear that the old view that animals are mere things, tools, machines or commodities cannot be sustained ethically.

But it is not only philosophy and science that are putting animals on the agenda. Increasingly, in Europe and the United States, animals are becoming a political issue as political parties vie for the ‘green’ and ‘animal’ vote. In turn, political scientists are beginning to look again at the history of political thought in relation to animals, and historians are beginning to revisit the political history of animal protection.

As animals grow as an issue of importance, so there have been more collaborative academic ventures leading to conference volumes, special journal issues, indeed new academic animal journals as well. Moreover, we have witnessed the growth of academic courses, as well as university posts, in Animal Ethics, Animal Welfare, Animal Rights, Animal Law, Animals and Philosophy, Human-Animal Studies, Critical Animal Studies, Animals and Society, Animals in Literature, Animals and Religion – tangible signs that a new academic discipline is emerging.

‘Animal Ethics’ is the new term for the academic exploration of the moral status of the non-human – an exploration that explicitly involves a focus on what we owe animals morally, and that also helps us to understand the influences – social, legal, cultural, religious and political – that legitimate animal abuse. This series explores the challenges that Animal Ethics poses, both conceptually and practically, to traditional understandings of human-animal relations.

The series is needed for three reasons: (i) to provide the texts that will service the new university courses on animals; (ii) to support the increasing number of students studying and academics researching in animal related fields, and (iii) because there is currently no book series that is a focus for multidisciplinary research in the field.

Specifically, the series will

• provide a range of key introductory and advanced texts that map out ethical positions on animals;

• publish pioneering work written by new, as well as accomplished, scholars, and

• produce texts from a variety of disciplines that are multidisciplinary in character or have multidisciplinary relevance.

The new Palgrave Macmillan Series on Animal Ethics is the result of a unique partnership between Palgrave Macmillan and the Ferrater Mora Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. The series is an integral part of the mission of the Centre to put animals on the intellectual agenda by facilitating academic research and publication. The series is also a natural complement to one of the Centre’s other major projects, the Journal of Animal Ethics. The Centre is an independent ‘think tank’ for the advancement of progressive thought about animals, and is the first Centre of its kind in the world. It aims to demonstrate rigorous intellectual enquiry and the highest standards of scholarship. It strives to be a world-class centre of academic excellence in its field.

We invite academics to visit the Centre’s website www.oxfordanimalethics.com and to contact us with new book proposals for the series.

Andrew Linzey and Priscilla N. Cohn

General Editors

Acknowledgements

My heartfelt thanks go out to all the authors for making this pioneering collection a reality, and for their enduring the editing process with good grace. I extend my appreciation to Vidhya Jayaprakash for her prompt, efficient and courteous assistance throughout the entire copy-editing process. Once again, I’m indebted to Andrew Linzey for his initial interest and encouragement in the project, without which this book might well have remained just a good idea.

Notes on Contributors

Fred H. Besthorn, PhD, is Professor and MSW Program Director at the School of Social work, Wichita State University, America. Author of 50 publications on integrating deep ecological awareness with social work practice, Fred has presented at dozens of social work/environmental conferences, and is the creator of The Global Alliance for a Deep-Ecological Social Work (www.ecosocialwork.org).

Eileen Bona is a registered psychologist, with more than 20 years’ experience, specialising in working with people with organic brain dysfunction and multiple mental health diagnoses; 12 years ago she founded an animal- and nature-assisted therapy programme to augment her therapeutic practice for children and youth with trauma histories.

Shanna L. Burke is a clinical social worker with Nonotuck Resource Associates, Massachusetts, America, providing consultation in behaviour management and mental health. Her research interests include neurodevelopmental disabilities, gene-environment interactions, and animal-assisted therapy. Shanna is currently a doctoral candidate at Simmons College in Boston.

Gail Courtnage is a clinical social worker in Edmonton, Canada. Starting her career in child protection, she has 13 years’ experience working with children and youth. Her love of animals and children brought her to the field of animal-assisted therapy, and Gail is currently working her dream job at Dreamcatcher Nature-Assisted Therapy.

Jan Fook, PhD, is currently Chair in Education (Critical Reflection) at Kingston University and St. Georges, University of London. She has held professorships in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and Norway. She has published widely (mostly on critical social work and critical reflection), including three books on women and animals.

Cassandra Hanrahan, PhD, teaches critical anti-oppressive social, cultural and social work theory, and policy analysis at Dalhousie University, Canada. She researches the interrelatedness of human, other animal, and environmental health and welfare, and the dynamic relationships between all three that affirm our kinship and remind us of our place in the web of life.

Dorothea Iannuzzi is a clinical social worker, working with individuals and families impacted by a developmental disability, including autism spectrum disorders. Dorothea is a Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) fellow at UMMC Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, Massachusetts, and is currently a doctoral student at Simmons College School of Social Work.

Christine H. Kim is a research writer for the National Museum of Animals & Society, Los Angeles, and curator for their fall 2013 exhibition My Dog Is My Home. Christine is also a social worker in the skid row community of Los Angeles, with an interest in exploring the human-animal bond in her practice.

Lynn Loar, PhD, is President of the Pryor Foundation, America, and is a social worker who specialises in research into the role that cruelty to and neglect of animals plays in family violence. She is the co-author of Teaching Empathy: Animal-Assisted Therapy Programs for Children and Families Exposed to Violence (2004) and Animal Hoarding (2006).

Atsuko Matsuoka, PhD, is Associate Professor of Social Work at York University, Canada. Her research has addressed the intersectionality of oppression among immigrants, ethnic older adults, and in relation to animals. Atsuko is co-author of the journal article Human consequences of animal exploitation: Needs for redefining social welfare (2013), and co-editor of Defining Critical Animal Studies (2013).

Maureen MacNamara, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Social Work at Appalachian State University, America. Maureen has scholarly interests in, and has created and implemented, the development/evaluation of animal-assisted intervention methodologies, impact of human-animal relationships in community, family, and individual functioning, and functional assessment of animals in animal-assisted interaction programmes.

Jeannine Moga provides crisis intervention, medical case consultation, skills training, and client counselling at North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Jeannine’s scholarly interests include complicated bereavement, the inclusion of companion animals in individual and family therapy, and the development/evaluation of animal-assisted intervention methodologies.

Emma Newton is a graduate student of anthrozoology and an intern with the National Museum of Animals and Society, Los Angeles. Emma helped curate the fall 2013 exhibition My Dog Is My Home: The Experience of Human-Animal Homelessness, and plans to continue researching human-animal relationships in veterinary school.

Nina Papazian is a nephrology social worker in Peterborough, Canada, specialising in bereavement therapy. She is developing a veterinary social work practice and is a member of the Association of Pet Loss and Bereavement (APLB). Nina has presented at APLB and Canadian Association of Nephrology Social Workers conferences since 2001.

Komalsingh Rambaree, PhD, was born and grew up in Mauritius. Currently a senior social work lecturer at the University of Gävle, Sweden, his research area is eco-social work. Komalsingh is also working on the setting up of a multi-disciplinary team on ‘Green Care’, which includes animal-assisted social work education, research and practice.

Thomas Ryan, PhD, a native of Far North Queensland, Australia, is now in his third decade of continuous full-time rural social work practice in Tasmania. An Associate Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, and author of Animals and Social Work: A Moral Introduction (2011), Thomas’ life has always been blessed with animal companionship.

John Sorenson, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at Brock University, Canada. His books include Critical Animal Studies: Thinking the Unthinkable (2014), Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach (2013, co-editor), Animal Rights (2010), Ape (2009), Culture of Prejudice (2008, co-author), Ghosts and Shadows (2001, co-author), and Imagining Ethiopia (1993).

Adrienne Elizabeth Thomas has qualifications in health, education, social work and counselling. Living between Aotearoa, New Zealand and Cymru, Wales, she works as a social work practitioner/counsellor. Adrienne established Loving Tails in 1997, to offer support to clients in animal companion loss, and support and training to animal health professionals in loss and bond-centred practice.

Deborah Walsh, PhD, is a social work practitioner and academic at the University of Queensland, Australia. Specialising in domestic and family violence, she has many years of experience working with women who experience violence and with men who use it. Deborah’s research interests include violence during pregnancy, companion animal welfare, and relationships between social class and violence.

Introduction

Thomas Ryan

John Stuart Mill (cited in Regan, 1983, p. vi) made the observation that ‘Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.’ Mill, who lent his voice to numerous social reform causes, specifically included the nineteenth-century movement to elevate the moral standing of nonhuman animals in this process.

Mill’s observation of the challenges facing all movements seeking to make major moral and social changes is particularly germane to the challenges facing social workers endeavouring to have the welfare and wellbeing of animals placed upon their discipline’s agenda. The ubiquitous query one routinely encounters when social workers either come across a piece of social work literature addressing some aspect of animals in social work, or chance upon the issue in a discussion, is, ‘What have animals to do with social work?’ At best, the inquiry has an element of intrigue and hence opportunity for further exchange, and can be characterised as a form of relative dismissal.

This was the response I encountered back in 1992, when having initially intended to devote a social work honours’ thesis to the relevance of Gandhian thought for social work, I approached the senior academic responsible for the honours’ programme with a request to change my topic to an exploration of relevance of animal rights to social work. My request was met with a healthy degree of scepticism, but I was fortunate to elicit an aroused curiosity and a conditional approval to proceed. Afterwards, I corresponded with Andrew Linzey (then Director of Studies at the Centre for the Study of Theology at the University of Essex, England) to advise him of my subject matter, and he responded, ‘Absolutely astonished that you should venture to be so bold and adventuresome and even more astonished that your university is prepared to take it on.’¹ I must admit that I still look back with a mixture astonishment, but more gratitude, for being accorded the opportunity – I suspect I would have been unlikely to have been so fortunate elsewhere in the social work academic world, but would like to think that that would no longer be the case for current undergraduates.

However, more often than not the query is a conversation terminator, and characterised by an implicit ridiculing and absolute dismissal. Three instances come to mind – the first two involved the dismissal by senior academic examiners of my honours thesis (one commented that consideration of animals had as much to do with social work as did aeronautical engineering) and doctoral dissertation (the other that it was contrary to the function of social work, in effect, a category error); the third was from an otherwise compassionate practitioner whose bewilderment manifested itself in the observation that it was obvious that animals had nothing to do with social work, and that they could have no other purpose than be means to human ends.

Over the last decade, there has been a steady but growing body of social work literature on animals; however the discussion is still very much in its infancy. Barring some notable exceptions, the theoretical and ethical literature remains conspicuously silent on the issue, whilst much of the literature devoted to animal-assisted therapies tends to view the animals involved in purely instrumental or functional terms. The growth of veterinary social work in a number of North American universities has been a noteworthy development, although both the terminology and its conceptual scope are not without their limitations and shortcomings.

The catalyst for this collection has been the aforementioned question, and it has served to provide the book’s focus and structure – Part 1 is devoted to theoretical and moral articulations as to why animals ought to matter to social work, whilst Part 2 outlines how animals are of direct concern to social work. This underscores the fundamental interrelationship between the theoretical and moral, and the practical, but the latter needs to be grounded in the former – as Tawney (1964, p. 41) observes:

Men may genuinely sympathize with the demand for a radical change, but unless they will take the pains, not only to act, but to reflect, they end by effecting nothing. For they deliver themselves bound to those who think they are practical because they take their philosophy so much for granted as to be unconscious of its implications, and, directly they try to act, that philosophy reasserts itself as an overruling force which presses their action more deeply into the old channels.

In Chapter 1, Fred Besthorn reflects upon the life-changing and perception-transforming nature of his childhood encounters with the world of insects, which provided catalyst for his coming to view all living beings as co-equal members of the natural community. Drawing upon the insights of deep ecology, he argues that it shares with social work a fundamental emphasis upon the importance of identification through relationship, and that social work’s longstanding championing of contextualising the person-in-environment can no longer warrant the exclusion of the natural world. Advocating for the necessity of social work to discard its anthropocentrism and expand its moral community, Fred contends that this will entail an embrace of an abiding sense of rapport, communion and empathy with all species, especially insects, and an acknowledgement of their moral considerability.

In Chapter 2, Jan Fook links her love of dogs since childhood with her academic interest in aspects of ordinary life that are so often absent from social work practice and research. Leading to a general disregard of the importance of animals in the lives of the very people with whom social workers work, it is conspicuously at odds with social work’s emphasis on situating and understanding people in their social context. Arguing that social work is almost uniquely placed among the professions to attend to human lives in their entirety, Jan suggests that any significant shift in social work’s responsiveness to the importance of animals in our lives will ultimately be dependent upon a reimagining of what constitutes legitimate research subject matter, and the development of new methodologies.

In Chapter 3, Cassandra Hanrahan undertakes an extended examination of One Health, which seeks to encourage an integrated understanding of health determinants and outcomes for humans, other animals, and the environment in the disciplines of human, veterinary and conservation medicine. It conceptualises them as embedded within shared social and ecological systems, and as being characterised by interconnectedness and interdependence. She highlights both its strengths and shortcomings, and what she sees as its anthropocentrism. Noting social work’s conspicuous absence from the One Health discourse and literature, she identifies innovative social work models that present a more expansive and species-inclusive understanding of systems/ecological theories. In conclusion, Cassandra advocates for a synthesis of anti-oppressive social work and One Health, so as to develop a truly anti-oppressive biocentric approach.

In Chapter 4, Christine Kim and Emma Newton engage in an exploration of inter-species homelessness, approaching this issue from both theoretical and practice perspectives. Addressing the specific and often unique challenges that it presents to social work agencies, they survey three aspects of homelessness where these issues are routinely encountered. Relating that most agencies make minimal or nil allowance for the animals involved, or for the profound importance of the human-animal bond, they argue this is all the more remarkable given the qualitative benefits that the humans in these situations readily identify, and the sobering fact that most people will decline assistance that entails their abandoning their animals. Christine and Emma contend that more quantitative research is required in order to inform and influence both policy makers and programme initiatives.

In Chapter 5, Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson make an impassioned case for the adoption of a trans-species social justice, in which animal wellbeing will come to be considered a core social justice concern. With it’s emphasis on the systemic rather than the individualised nature of injustice, this will entail a wide ranging reevaluation of the discipline’s ethical framework, and acknowledgement of the interconnection and interrelationship between the unjust treatment and oppression of humans and other animals. Atsuko and John claim this reevaluation will necessitate moving beyond the increasingly accepted therapeutic use of animals in social work practice, and of growing acceptance of the linkage between human and animal abuse, to the recognition of the cognitive, emotional and social complexity of animals, and an openness to animal rights philosophy and theory.

In Chapter 6, Thomas Ryan addresses social work concerns that the argument from marginal cases (AMC) is antithetical to social work values, and that any moral comparison of vulnerable humans with animals diminishes human moral standing. In an extended examination, he contends that not only are the concerns raised misplaced, but that they are ultimately dependent upon reductive depictions of animality in the first instance, which also impairs our understanding of the nature of human disabilities. Arguing that the chief threat to vulnerable and dependent humans comes not from the AMC, but from the principle held to underpin social work, that being respect for persons, Thomas contends that we ought to accord moral priority to vulnerability and dependency independent of species membership, and to respect both humans and animals.

In Chapter 7, Shanna Burke and Dorothea Iannuzzi address the relevance of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) for social workers working with individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Noting the increasing application and acceptance of AAT with a wide cross-section of people, they observe that research has sought to identify its physiological, psychological and behavioural benefits for humans. They suggest that among the benefits for those with autism are that animals may be perceived as sharing in common non-verbal expressions of communication, to be non-judgemental, to not have expectations or make demands, and to provide friendship. In identifying the limitations and methodological problems associated with current research, Shanna and Dorothea urge that greater attention be paid to the ethical concerns surrounding the utilisation of both domesticated and non-domesticated animals in animal-assisted therapy.

In Chapter 8, Eileen Bona and Gail Courtnage introduce animal- and nature-assisted therapies as representing positive influences in the healing and development of children and youth with trauma histories. They highlight the ongoing research in the animal- and nature-assisted therapy fields, while hypothesising that consistent and repetitive goal-directed animal and nature interactions can facilitate the development of new neuronal pathways, and positive physiological change for children and youth who have structural organic brain damage due to their early trauma histories. Several case studies provide readers with examples of the application of such therapies, and given the important role that animals and nature play in human emotional, cognitive and social development, Eileen and Gail contend that they have much to offer contemporary social workers.

In Chapter 9, Lynn Loar observes that despite many social workers’ familiarity with the importance of companion animals in the lives of children, there nevertheless remains scant appreciation of the role that animals play within troubled families. Because there can often be a strong correlation between the abuse and neglect of animals and humans within the same household, she contends that social workers’ initial attention to the former can serve to alert them to behaviours that place at risk the safety of all household members. To this end, Lynn provides some innovative interview and assessment tools as practical applications, and she urges the necessity for collaborative interdisciplinary practice in order to most effectively assess risks and to focus interventions, as well as to ensure cross-species accountability.

In Chapter 10, Maureen MacNamara and Jeannine Moga observe that social work’s failure to attend to animals, and their centrality in the lives of many people, results in missed opportunities to engage individuals, families, and communities. Noting the conspicuous absence of models that would integrate and provide practical guidance, they propose a methodology and articulate guidelines that will enable social workers to utilise these relationships diagnostically and to facilitate the integration of animals into the full gamut of social work practice. Recommending the incorporation of human-animal relationships as a foundational component of undergraduate studies, and in the ongoing training of social work practitioners, Maureen and Jeannine contend that this will enable social workers to be effective advocates and to take positions of leadership in the creation of informed animal welfare policies.

In Chapter 11, Nina Papazian presents findings from a qualitative pilot study into the human-animal bond, undertaken in conjunction with her role as a hospital nephrology social worker. Relating that patients invariably face physiological, psychosocial and existential challenges to their quality of life, her study unequivocally confirms the importance and benefits of companion animals in patients’ day-to-day lives. Given social work’s commitment to identifying barriers to human wellbeing, and to implementing behavioural, cognitive and interpersonal changes to enhance it, she contends that social work would be remiss not to include animals as part of all psychosocial assessments. To do so will greatly enhance the comprehensiveness, effectiveness and relevancy of social work interventions, and Nina says that it all starts with a simple query, ‘Do you have any companion animals?’

In Chapter 12, Komalsingh Rambaree examines the problem of stray dogs in his native Mauritius, reflecting upon the many challenges this presents, with specific reference to the involvement of social workers. Using an inductive discourse analysis, he places the issue in historical context, relating the various responses of government and animal welfare organisations, and the underlying negative attitudes that underpin the frequent inhumane treatment of the dogs. Noting that the social workers are mostly motivated by an explicit sense of their moral obligations to the animals, he pinpoints three critical roles that they have to play – the promotion of animal welfare informed by rights and social justice perspectives; advocating for and accessing resources to assist the companion animals of the poor; and the fostering and inculcation of more compassionate attitudes.

In Chapter 13, Adrienne Thomas addresses the grief experienced by the loss of beloved animal companions for any number of reasons. She observes that although human-animal relationships can be as deep and enduring as our attachments to other humans, and sometimes more so, their significance is rarely acknowledged or validated by the wider society, or by social work specifically. This lack of recognition, and the minimisation of the accompanying loss, results in a disenfranchised grief. Interspersing her chapter with poignant vignettes, she also identifies our often conflicted and contradictory attitudes towards animals. Adrienne articulates the necessity for social work’s affirmation of the human-animal bond, its validation of relationships and the normalisation of grief, its advocacy for both human and animal wellbeing, and the