The purpose of the thesis was to find out how to understand the main skills of the nursing staff in animal assisted Green Care activities and how those skills affected customers in their empowerment. The purpose of Green Care is to use natural elements and utilize animals as part of nursing.The focus was on the social pedagogical horse activity and invigorating activities with dogs. The purpose was also to bring more awareness of the Green Care ideology and en-courage the nursing staff to use this ideology.

This study was carried out as a qualitative research. The subjects of this research were mentally disabled customers, people with mental health problems and customers of child protection. Data for this thesis were collected by interviewing the nursing staff and their customers. The interview also included a form with open questions.

The results of the study show that skills of the nursing staff were important when the animal assisted activities were used as a part of nursing. The nursing staff`s skills affected greatly whether the customers considerer the activity as empowering and as a positive experience.In the future it would be useful to research how the effects of animal assisted activities on the customers are followed and documented.