Putting the Two Worlds Together

I think one of the hardest things to do in life is to take what you love and are passionate about and find a way to meld it with your profession. I knew I wanted to work with at-risk youth in a therapeutic setting and bring horses into it. What I didn’t know was how to do it.

After college graduation I got a job as a Shelter Manager and Child Services Coordinator for a local domestic violence and sexual assault women’s shelter. I loved my job but found it hard to get the children at the shelter to buy in to the support groups and be willing to talk. I asked my supervisor if I could take them out to the barn to visit my horse, Wink, to just get them out of the shelter for a little while. I thought they would all want to ride him but I had no takers. Instead, they were happy and content with just being at the barn and brushing Wink. When given the chance to play with him and lead him around, they began to open up, talk, and interact. My supervisor eventually came out to the barn and was amazed at the difference in the children’s behaviors. It was during these outings to the barn that I began to realize that horses can be partnered with people not only for healing through riding, but also to help create a healing space for a person’s emotional and mental sides. I already had decided to pursue becoming a certified Therapeutic Riding Instructor through the North American Riding Association for the Handicapped (NARHA), but at the time NARHA was focused on strictly working with physical, cognitive, and mental impairments/disabilities with horses and not the mental health side.   So I began to research the field even farther to see if anyone else was doing what I was doing. 

Through a series of events I moved back to northern Virginia and began volunteering again at the therapeutic riding center Lift Me Up! (a center which I had volunteered at as a teenage and throughout summers in college). There I began working on my hours required for NARHA certification. Lift Me Up had a need for a Program Director, and after I was NARHA certified I became their part-time Director. For my “paying” job I worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a Grant Specialist. That job turned out to be instrumental in providing me with the background and knowledge needed to start and run a non-profit organization. By the time I left the EPA 5 years later, I was a national trainer for non-profits on grants management and an auditor for federal grants. This gave me a crash course on the nuts and bolts of the best practices for the management side of this business. That job also did something else: It clearly showed me that although I could excel in an office setting, my passion and my drive were at the barn and with the kids. Every time I stepped into my workplace elevator my heart would sink and I had to force myself to go into the office. What got me through the day was that on the way home I would be able to stop at the barn and start my “real” job. 

On a business trip for the EPA I met the horse that would change the course of my life and would bring everything together — Dances till Dawn, or “Diesel.” When I purchased him he was a two-year-old, unbroken, 16.2-hand American warmblood (who is now 17.2) with a huge attitude and a bullying problem. The previous owners had halter-broken him and sent him to a trainer, but the trainer was so intimidated by him that Diesel was confined in a stall for 30 days; at the end of it they walked him back to the farm (more than 10 miles) because they could not get him into a trailer. I saw him running in his field behind a wall of electric tape and I asked his owners if I could go into the field with him. They said yes but wanted to hand me a whip to take with me. But Diesel “chose” me; within 10 minutes he was free-lunging around me in an open field — the first time I ever had that amazing experience. What made that moment even more special was that this horse would run anyone else out of the pasture, sending them sailing over or diving under the fence to escape.

And that was that. My second horse was now in a trailer, being shipped cross-country to me. It was a magical time for me. I had started and trained other horses for people but this was the first one I would be able to train totally on my own schedule. I took plenty of time with him on the ground and the result was incredible — no bucking and no crazy first ride. He and I were one from the very beginning. For those horse people who have been lucky enough to have this kind of experience you can relate to this incredible, once-in-a-lifetime relationship with a horse — the one with whom you become one when you ride, such that if you simply think “left” your horse goes left…I could go on with how this horse changed my life on every level but that is a different story!

 **Just a side note on Diesel: He did not turn into a perfect, well-behaved horse. He knows exactly who is handling him and if he doesn’t consider that person his alpha, forget it — he will take it back. He is still that bully but is no longer aggressive. I guess that is why we fit so well together. He keeps me real and keeps me on my toes around him. He will always test me, but it is those tests that I love about him. When he chooses to partner with me it is a choice made out of respect, not fear. **

A Change of Course

I had started on the road toward my Master’s degree in social work and was a year into my program when I found the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association (EAGALA). I was still teaching therapeutic riding and enjoying it, but I kept wanting to find a way to add the element of working with at-risk children/youth and horses. I discussed this at length with an EAGALA certified professional and was intrigued by their approach.   The EAGALA model is an un-mounted model – meaning that all of their sessions are a combination of ground work activities with the horses and the clients.  This was the same method I had found worked so well back when I first started bringing clients out to the barn.  Un-mounted activities enabled the focus to remain on the relationship between the horse and client and not on “horsemanship” and “riding skills” which can allow the clients to miss or ignore the subtle language of the horse and how their actions and thought patterns effect outcomes in the arena and their life.

I did some research and decided that I wanted to learn more, so in 2004 I went off to an EAGALA certification training program. I was blown away. This was it; this was what I was looking for. It pulled together everything I had known in my head and had done while working with the kids, and confirmed that I was on the right track. But more than that, EAGALA also had a team approach: a licensed mental health professional, a certified equine specialist, and the horses. I had been struggling with the other models of equine mental health therapy (NARHA’s Equine Facilitated Mental Health Association and EPONA both models only require one person that could be both the mental health side and the equine specialist/instructor and they are a mounted/riding based approach normally) because I always wanted to focus my thoughts on the horse. Even though I was in the middle of my Master’s program, I really felt that I was a horse professional first and foremost, not a therapist. In those three days of EAGALA training I made the decision to not pursue the rest of my Master’s and, instead, to become the Equine Specialist side of the equation. During my Master’s program and working at the EPA I had acquired an excellent background for running a non-profit organization, but I had now discovered that I didn’t have to wear all the hats. I could focus on my strength, which is knowing the horse.

I wish I could say that after that training in 2004 I came back and started working as an Equine Specialist full-time and all was well. However, my journey from there bounced around as I mixed part-time director/instructor/training jobs in the equine-assisted therapy field, gaining knowledge and experience and having the incredible opportunity to be a part of my students’ and clients’ lives along the way. I also had to do full-time paying work but I chose jobs that continued to broaden my knowledge in this field, such as a Juvenile Diversion Officer in a Juvenile Court Service Unit, and an Equine Specialist at a residential treatment facility that worked with at-risk youth, developing an EAGALA model within that facility and existing horse program.

Eventually I thought I had found my dream job in helping a southwest Virginia therapeutic riding program grow from a part-time to a full-time program and adding EAGALA model mental health therapy and learning programs to their services. But it was not meant to be. That organization was too stuck and was not open to making the organizational changes it needed to thrive. At the time this was a devastating blow. I had poured my heart and soul into that organization and I felt I had lost everything when I made the choice to walk away.

So there I was, feeling like the rug had just been pulled out from under me, I had a new little 1 month old baby girl, and I didn’t know what to do or how to get back on track with what I had always wanted to do with my life. After a day or two of my serious pouting my husband pointed out to me that I had grown that organization from only 12 kids to more than 75 riders in just one year. He also pointed out that I had, right in my own head, everything I needed to run an equine-assisted activities and therapies program. Starting my own center had always been my end game — something I had dreamed about doing since college — but for some reason I just never thought I could do it on my own. I had convinced myself that I could only make such a program work under the umbrella of another organization. Again with the support of my friends and family, I was encouraged to believe in myself and in what I had to offer. With a huge leap of faith in myself and in my family, I founded Unbridled Change in 2008 (less than 2 weeks after deciding to step away from the previous program) to be able to provide all types of equine-assisted activities and therapies to all types of populations.

Finding a Home

I now recognize that every path in my life has led to Unbridled Change. I didn’t always know where the path was going and why I had to go through certain bumps on it, but the “universe” had a plan. I firmly believe that if even one of those hurdles or bumpy parts had been removed I would never have gotten this far. I am deeply excited about the prospects of where Unbridled Change can go. I also feel honored to be able work with the staff, volunteers, and clients we have and will have in the years to come.

Unbridled Change is entering its third year of service and I am still humbled when I look at what we’ve accomplished in such a short time. We are now running a year-round, full-time program and we have set the standard of what a truly combined Equine Assisted Activities & Therapies (EAAT) program should look like. Our client and rider base is growing every day and the number of volunteers who help keep us running is growing as well. Every once in a while I have to force myself to step back from the daily grind and take a moment to reflect, to breathe, to smile, and to remember why I started this journey … so that my life — my passion — can help create a space that heals both humans and horses. Unbridled Change is that place for me.