Two Slippery Rock University students and a professor are launching a second animal-assisted intervention study and program at a state prison in the region.

Yvonne Eaton-Stull, an assistant professor of public health and social work at SRU, will lead the study, which began May 17 at the State Correctional Institution in Cambridge Springs.

The program is meant to help inmates with emotional problems and analyze how the presence of dogs affects their well-being.

Eaton-Stull, in a news release announcing the program, said she was told by a psychology manager at SCI-Mercer, where a similar program is winding down this month, that there continues to be a “huge need” for treatment of emotional problems in state prisons.

The university-led program at SCI-Mercer will end this month, after nearly eight months of working with men diagnosed with anxiety.

The new program at SCI-Cambridge Springs will focus on female inmates deemed to be susceptible to self-harm, and will run for 12 weeks. SRU students Christina DeAngelis, a junior from Pittsburgh, and Alisha Zambroski, a junior from Erie, will teach the inmates coping skills with and without the help of dogs.

The researchers say there is limited scientific data on the effects of animal-assisted intervention with prisoners, and they hope the study will add to that information.