HugglePets in the Community is a community interest company working with children, young people and adults. It offers animal-assisted therapy, in which a therapist works with animals to help people with their mental health.

This pioneering and unique social enterprise is based in Wolverhampton, where nearly 4000 children & over 21,000 adults are affected by stress, anxiety and severe mental health issues. Research shows animal assisted therapy can improve mental health and wellbeing.

In this episode, Hannah Dixon describes:

Huggle wants as many people as possible to use its services is building the UK's first community aquarium and sensory activity centre.How Huggle's plans have been backed by the community through a successful crowdfunding campaign which raised over £90,000. How did Huggle hit its target?Why partnership working has been crucial in getting this far.Hannah's future plans.How Huggle measures its impact.The biggest challenges Hannah's faced so far and her advice to other social entrepreneurs.

Hi, I’m Heidi Fisher, the host of the Make an Impact Podcast. I'm an impact measurement expert, passionate about helping you make a bigger impact in the world by maximising the impact your services have.

I can help you to measure, manage and communicate the impact you have better to funders, investors, commissioners and other stakeholders, and to systemise your data collection and analysis so that it frees up time and doesn’t become an additional burden.

I love helping you to measure social and economic impacts, including Social Return on Investment or value for money assessments, as part of understanding the change you make to peoples’ lives.

You can get in touch via LinkedIn or the website makeanimpactcic.co.uk if you’d like to find out more about working with me.