Programs |
Equine-Assisted Therapy
Since 1981, Hope on Horseback has provided horsemanship experiences for children and adults with cognitive, physical and social challenges to enhance the quality and productivity of their lives. Riding exercises help individuals overcome fear, improve balance, and enhance focus and concentration. People who need physical or occupational therapy often benefit from specialized riding programs. Riding programs use specially trained horses alongside certified staff and well-trained volunteers. Students work toward various goals, depending on what their needs indicate. Classes are scheduled weekly in five-week sessions held from April to November. Only four students are accepted for each class.
For more information on classes, schedules and costs click here!
Equine-Assisted Learning
In 2024, Hope on Horseback introduced Equine-Assisted Learning to our programs. EAL is an experiential learning approach that promotes the development of life skills. This focus can be related to academic achievement and classroom behavior, personal growth and exploration or professional pursuits such as leadership development, team building and executive coaching.
Mental health of both children and adults has become a concern in this age or remote work and technological insolation. Exercises with the horses and observation of their behavior provide the basis for these 21st Century situations. Typically, EAL classes are ground only with no riding involved. Suggested group size is a maximum of 10 to 15 participants. We can work with you to develop half or whole day workshops, a 1.5-hour clinic or a more extensive multi-class session.
For more information on classes please contact director@hopehorseback.org
Corporate Team Building
Equine-Assisted Learning programs provide an opportunity to experience team building in a unique way. Self-awareness and leadership development are naturally fostered through arena exercise. Our herd consists of a variety of personalities, and it is not unusual to see potentially challenging workplace dynamics play out during a team building workshop. This is a memorable process and becomes a touch point of reference in future team interactions. Interpersonal communication and conflict resolution are crucial in today's marketplace. Through guided interactions with our horses, participants become aware of their own limiting behavior patterns and learn to implement more productive ways to accomplish their goals.
Interacting with our horses reveals blind spots. Our exercises prompt the discovery of more creative responses when faced with a challenging situation. The experience of time shared in the arena is a natural base for building trust and camaraderie among team members.
Communicating Effectively
Horses sense and respond to interactions, emotions and throughs which are conveyed subconsciously through body language. Through observing how a horse responds to requests and directions, individuals learn how to communicate more effectively. Horses can help us learn how to work through uncomfortable, emotionally charged situations. Guided arena exercises promote breakthroughs which increase our depth of emotional intelligence. As we gain a better idea of how we are perceived by others, we can begin to grasp how to best communicate. During a workshop we learn to embrace these differences and discover how to work well with them.
The horses exemplify openness, honesty, and transparency. As we learn more about the nature of a horse, they help us to recognize subtle body language and clarity of thought. We gain insight through this direct feedback from the horses as we communicate. Participants are able to apply this knowledge to everyday interactions as they develop their communication skills.
Overcoming Obstacles
Horses are gifted with innate emotional intelligence. They portray what it feels like to really live in the moment, setting aside whatever is not pertinent to that moment. They easily register incongruence within someone as this is a skill they need in order to stay safe. When they sense this, they will often walk away as an instinctive response. As we learn to remove this mask of incongruity and be true to who we are and what we are feeling, horses will visibly calm as they release tension, and then move towards us. Trust begins to blossom as horse and human build a relationship. We challenge our negative self-perception as the horse's foster acceptance through their response to our true selves. The horses demonstrate healthy ways of facing crisis. We learn methods to overcome temptation and how to navigate other obstacles in life. This has relevance to everyday life we gain calmness, strength, focus and respect. Horses provide access to a different way of seeing our world and ourselves.
