Cats interaction to improve hospitalized children’s quality of life

Frida’s Friends was born 10 years ago thanks to Mario Colombo. Since then, the Onlus started lots of collaborations with Paediatric Homes, schools, Associations, airports, and hospitals for Pet Therapy related projects, strongly believing in the positive role of pets in our Society.

The project started years ago but had to be stopped during the Covid-19 pandemic. Given the strong results the Onlus got through Animal Assisted Intervention with cats, Frida’s Friends decided to restart the project and keep helping children.

The project helps visually impaired children by selecting and training special cats to interact with them to improve their skills and quality of life.

After a period of introduction of targeted Animal Assistance Interventions, children will join individual activity sessions with qualified experts and cats assigned to them each week. The sessions will be followed for the entire time by a dedicated therapist.

During the entire project, cats are followed by expert veterinarians to ensure their health and by educator specialists to guarantee the success of the initiative while focusing always on the wellbeing of pets and, of course, children.

The bond between people and pets is very strong and can improve our everyday lives, with lots of benefits, including stress reduction and a calming effect on heart. Animal Assisted Intervention with cats can help to promote attention and self-regulation skills, arouse emotions, facilitate relationships and improve children's quality of life.

Frida’s Friends wants to improve their affective relationship with pets, but also their skills in socialization and interaction, participating in new activities and decreasing self-closure. We also aim at an improvement in some specific movements, from a psychomotor point of view, and an improvement in memory and concentration skills

“Each time, the relationship between the cat and the patient brings a different emotion. The empathy created between two such different worlds align the needs of both in a unique and fascinating way. The Ragdoll, most of all, can establish an invisible thread of interconnection that makes the relationship with the child a magical and unforgettable moment.”

Franco & Michela Plavan, IAA Specialists and Cat Coadjutors

“Pet therapy helped me in my psycho-physical recovery. I feel cats very close to me, they know how to be independent and strong, something I would really like to learn. I immediately created a great relationship with Diletta, the cat assigned to me, and I learnt a lot from her. I felt so understood.”

Anna, Adolescent Patient with severe eating disorder