In April this year, the implementation of the Agreement between the Government, the Regions and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano on the document bearing “National Guidelines for Animal Assisted Interventions (AAI)” of March 25, 2015 has been completed on the Italian territory.

This is a new and important step in the process of regulation and harmonization of the AAI sector at Italian level, which began in 2009 with the establishment of the National Reference Centre for Animal Assisted Interventions and continued with the approval of the Guidelines themselves in 2015.

It is therefore confirmed that the interest and attention of the Italian institutions on this issue are great and aimed at ensuring the provision of services that protect the health and well-being of both the person and the animal involved.

In this context, the Guidelines make a valuable – though not definitive – contribution, since they distinguish the different types of intervention, the various professional figures of the multidisciplinary team and their respective training paths; they also define the requirements of the facilities delivering AAI, the animal species involved and the operating procedures of the interventions. All this is done in view of an increased standardization of operational protocols and the improvement of the quality of life of all the stakeholders.

As mentioned above, there remains the need to continue working on the various aspects of AAI as described in the Guidelines. This improvement process, based on constant dialogue between the institutions and the professionals operating on the territory, was initiated with the Workshop held in Rome on September 24, 2015 and continues today through the Working Tables organized at the Ministry of Health, one of which is specifically dedicated to the coordination of the regional implementation of the Guidelines.

The goal just reached with the completion of the implementation phase of the Agreement has given further impetus to the CRN AAI’s commitment to promoting and supporting the AAI industry as well as the dialogue between the institutions and the territory.

You can find Italian law and regulation on AAI on the Italian version of the IZSVe website by clicking the button below

Italian law and regulation on AAI (in Italian) »