The Connected Horse  experienced facilitators lead participants through a variety of therapeutic activities:

• observing horses in pastures or stalls
• over-the-fence introduction to horses
• grooming, leading, and group exercises on how horses teach us to gain awareness, relax and self-regulate our responses.

The work with the horses and facilitators helps participants to gain clarity, adjust patterns of behavior, gain confidence, define changing roles and release emotions such as fear, grief and negativity while learning to be fully present in the moment.

Facilitating horses and humans is not a cookie-cutter approach. Because we are working with living beings, the process and outcomes are unpredictable, and each instance must be assessed, and handled, according to what is happening right in front of us. A participant’s experience cannot be planned or anticipated, just as the horses’ responses cannot be controlled or managed. This is what gives the Connected Horse curriculum its power and freshness. This opens up many possible experiences for participants and horses. The successful facilitator must respond, adjusting moment to moment.

A good facilitator can:

• Oversee a safe experience for participants and horses
• Design a series of activities that build on one another to meet a pre-determined objective
• Adjust that design on the fly as situation or participant needs demand
• Welcome and unconditionally accept while weaving a safe and inclusive social container
• Set up an activity clearly using a minimum of concrete and simple words
• Guide participants through an activity, encouraging reluctant participants and tempering the over-eager
• Intervene without being heavy-handed or let something pass while still being on top of the situation
• Clearly end an activity
• Use unconditional acceptance, paraphrasing along with open-ended questions to invite participants to express what they experienced and solidify what they learned.

 

Three additional components are critical for Connected Horse facilitators.

1. Equine-Guided Skills/Horse Sense

• Designing activities that horses find comfortable and enjoyable.
• Being able to read a horse’s responses and redirect participants either verbally or physically so that they and the horse are not harmed.
• Knowing how to keep participants safe around horses.
• Willingness to step aside and let horses work their magic.

 

2. Willingness to Learn from and be Led and Delighted by Persons Living with Dementia and Their Care Partners

While knowledge about dementia is useful, it can be a two-edged sword. Participants are best served by a facilitator who can observe subtleties in participants and horses and immediately adjust their approach until it’s effective. Knowing information about dementia can help, but could also create a barrier between participant and facilitator, if addressed in a clinical approach.

The participants and horses will be at their best when you are calm, relaxed and accepting of what participants and horses bring. This isn’t about fixing anything, or changing the outcomes, but about letting things unfold. Facilitating this process is a pleasure. Enjoy yourself.

 

3. A Working Understanding of Family Systems and Relationship Dynamics

We are working on affecting the relationship between the person with the dementia diagnosis and their care partner. At its most basic, the family systems theory tells us that people act oddly when they are anxious. Relationships evolve to manage anxiety by adopting fixed patterns of distance that may or may not be functional for the situation. Systems are rarely helped by a facilitator interfering in this delicate dance, while horses seem to recalibrate it without effort. The facilitator’s job is to hold a shape for this to happen, and then to stay out of the way so it can unfold.

Phase 1 of Connected Horse facilitator training will introduce you to information about dementia, family systems theory, and the basics of facilitating a workshop.  Your first onsite training will allow you to practice and increase your skills around horses.

Phase 2 of the online training will drill more deeply into the skills you need to facilitate the program without a master facilitator at your side.