John-Tyler Binfet

Youtube Book Synopsis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Ve_viq8c0

About Dr. Binfet

John-Tyler Binfet is an associate professor in the Okanagan School of Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Dr. Binfet is the Director of UBC’s Centre for Mindful Engagement and the Director of UBC’s long-running canine therapy program titled Building Academic Retention through K9s (B.A.R.K.; bark.ok.ubc.ca). As the founder and director of B.A.R.K., Dr. Binfet oversees on-campus interventions and community programming that see 60+ therapy dogs brought to campus to reduce student stress. Dr. Binfet’s insights into therapy dogs and the role they play in supporting student wellbeing are captured in his co-authored book titled “Canine-Assisted Interventions” (Binfet & Hartwig, 2020; Routledge Press). When not covered in dog hair from work in the B.A.R.K. lab, Dr. Binfet’s second research stream sees him exploring how children, adolescents and teachers understand and enact kindness within the school context. Along with Drs. Gadermann and Schonert-Reichl, Dr. Binfet developed the School Kindness Scale, the first measure of its kind to assess perceptions of school kindness. His new book “Cultivating Kindness: An Educator’s Guide” (Binfet, 2022; University of Toronto Press) showcases findings from surveys and interviews with over 3,000 children and adolescents around how kindness is conceptualized. An informal look into Dr. Binfet’s research can be found in his blog for Psychology Today titled “Canines, Kids, and Kindness.”