How Paw Pause can support your NDIS goals

Are you a school student and an NDIS participant and you’re not sure how to achieve the goals in your plan?

Paw Pause can help.

You already know that every Paw Pause dog is a qualified therapy dog. And our handlers are professionally-registered allied health professionals, including social workers, occupational therapists, counsellors and psychologists. 

Our teams understand how the NDIS works and, as we work together, we can learn about your goals and go about achieving them. 

So, what are some common goals that our clients are working on with a Paw Pause team?

• Emotional regulation – it’s no secret that dogs can help provide a calming influence. If you’ve struggled to manage your emotions at school, having the two friendly faces of a Paw Pause handler and trained therapy dog is having a team in your corner, focused on you. We’ll work on science-backed strategies to calm your big emotions and practice them together over time, boosted with our dog’s calming presence. With practice, you’ll be able to use these techniques with and without us being there.

• Social skills – other humans can be confusing, fact! Dogs are much easier to understand. However, just like learning a foreign language, we can definitely learn to understand more about human behaviour and how we act and interact with our friends and fellow students. Here, our allied health handlers can help decode what different behaviour looks like and we can work with our non-judgemental therapy dogs to feel comfortable practicing and understanding.

• Building independence – do you struggle to make your own decisions about your life? Sometimes it can be hard to make a decision if you’re worried it’s the wrong one. We understand and we’ll work with you so you can boost your confidence in yourself and back yourself. To do this, we draw upon our allied health expertise – but it’s even better than a regular therapy session because we have our therapy dogs to help keep you calm while you practice becoming more independent! 

• Managing anxiety – everyone gets anxious from time to time, but when it affects your ability to live your life that’s when we need extra help. Often perfectionism and anxiety go hand in hand. Plus, lots of students feel anxious about making the journey to school and arriving on campus, but knowing your Paw Pause team is waiting for you can be an excellent motivator to get to school and help keep you calm on your journey as you look forward to seeing our friendly faces waiting just for you. The bus journey can feel more achievable when you’ve got all the pats you could wish for at the other end! Plus, your human therapists will work with you to build your capacity and practice strategies to help on non Paw Pause days.

• Behavioural issues related to your disability – if you are struggling with managing some of your behaviours because of your disability, and you have an NDIS goal relating to this, a Paw Pause team can help. We’ll get to know you and what your needs are and use our professional experience to work on techniques that might help. Best of all, it’s not another therapist. We work in partnership with our trained therapy dogs which brings a calm but ready energy to our sessions so you’ll always look forward to seeing us. 

We understand your NDIS goals will be much more specific than the examples above. These are just some ideas that might help you when it comes to imagining how a Paw Pause team could work with you.

We use evidence-based data and research, therapeutic techniques and a sprinkle of dog magic to get you the results you’re looking for, delivered at school so you don’t even have to go to another appointment! 

Talk to us about your specific goals and we’ll match you with the perfect Paw Pause team for you and your needs.