CARing Kids is suitable for all mainstream primary schools.

The programme has been designed for children aged 9-10, taking into account their developmental needs and cognitive abilities. In this sense, the programme is suitable for students in Primary 2 to 3.

Yes, all teaching professionals and counsellors qualified to work on a school campus may conduct the CARing Kids programme after they have completed the foundation training by the HKU CARing Kids team.

Yes. Foundation training including animal-assisted education, the essentials of interacting with reading canines, understanding their needs and welfare, and experiential learning (completion of all six sessions of the programme for at least once).

All of our teaching materials are written in Chinese but the main medium we use are images and visuals. Schools may use different languages to explain the stories. If needed, the participating schools may use other texts to assist in the teaching. The HKU team has conducted a CARing Kids programme in a non-Chinese speaking school.

It is a home-trained companion dog which has passed through assessment by our CARing Kids collaborators. The personality and behaviour are suited to a school environment and interaction with school children. The reading canines will quietly accompany school children in reading storybooks.

Dog owners who would like their companion dogs to become reading canines may contact our collaborators to enquire about the application and assessment procedures.

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