Introducing Lingfield Wellbeing Dog, Luna

We are delighted to announce that through the coming weeks, we will  be starting to introduce a Wellbeing Dog to our school community here at Lingfield. We have joined The Dog Mentor Programme, which builds on the benefits of the human-animal bond, by offering young people who would like to be involved positive experiences with dogs that can help them educationally, developmentally, emotionally and socially.  Over the last nine years The Dog Mentor programme has been shown to have a positive impact for young people in many areas, including self-esteem, behaviour, peer relationships and better engagement skills. These improvements can then often result in improved academic achievement. 

Luna, (a 3-year-old cocker spaniel), has already been accepted as a suitable candidate, and has started her training with the Programme. Full training will be given to both Luna and our staff who will be working with her, as our priority is to ensure the welfare of everyone involved. Luna has already achieved her Silver award; her Gold award is given when a positive impact has been evidenced and reviewed by the awarding body.   

We hope to start introducing Luna with some taster days in school through the rest of this term, so she can get used to the environment, and staff and students can get used to her being around school. This is then with a view to her being a more regular presence in school from the next academic year. However, we are also very aware that there will be some students and staff that, for various reasons, do not feel comfortable around dogs, and this will be handled very carefully with each individual’s preferences being respected.  

Initially, Luna will be working mostly with Sue Sevier, our SENDCO, and also some of our pastoral team members.  

We believe that The Dog Mentor Programme and Luna can  bring a positive influence to the Senior school environment and look forward to the benefits that Luna will have for our young people and the wider community.