Welcome to Equine Assisted World. I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson. New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy. Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com. You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com. Here on Equine Assisted World. We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and, established in the equine assisted field.
This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have. These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with. Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
We are, as always, talking to people who are at the cutting edge of this extraordinary field that has grown so much in the last 5 10 years from something on the hippie fringes to something that's now coming into the mainstream. And we have Alex Northover. Alex Northover. Works out of Cheshire in the UK and treads the line between equine assisted stuff, mounted stuff non mounted stuff, working in schools, working with the nervous system, working with the brain.
Bringing a PhD to the table with this has been doing this for many years, like many of us have and is only just beginning to pop up and be recognized because she's been a bit busy like many people have until this point.
So if you want to, if you're interested, if you're someone listening to this and you're interested in how to really look at the holistic picture the human brain, the human nervous system, autism, physical disabilities, ADHD, trauma, working off the horse, working on the horse, working with nature, working with nature.
the highest level of classical riding working without the horse at all working with the goat working with the chicken and getting school refusers Through their exams In a trailer in a farm And sending them off to university, you have arrived at the right place, you have arrived at Alex Northover. And Making Momentum, which is her project in in Cheshire in England, and we also will need to talk a little bit about her wife Lenny.
Who also is a genius with nervous system stuff away from the horse and why that sort of combo makes for such a perfect service. If you are coming in as a service user, as a client with any of these kinds of needs. So Alex, welcome to Equine Assisted World. Tell us who you are and what you do.
Hi, thank you for having me. So, yeah, I'm Alex Northover. I'm one of the directors at Making Momentum CIC. So we're a community interest company, and we provide alternative provision term time in the week for a variety of schools and several LEAs. We're located in Cheshire just outside of Holmes Chapel. We're in a really good accessible area. position. So we work with Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester. We've had children from Manchester, Trafford several of the LEAs.
We're right on the border. So, we have a lot of people coming from a lot of different directions to us. And we also run family play dates at the weekend, utilize the horse boy method. Yeah, that's us.
Not everyone listening to this knows the English terminology. What's an LEA? Take us through all these acronyms you just brought us through.
Through at you. So, we're a CIC, which is a community interest company. So that is a a, a not for profit. It runs similar to a limited company. But it's somewhere between a limited company and a charity. So we don't have full charitable status.
We don't have Governors, the way a charity does a governance board the kind of logistics of managing is a little bit easier because it manages more like a limited company, but you are committed to reinvesting your funds into the services of the community in some respect. So, that's the CIC. LEA is the local educational authority.
So, in the UK local boroughs are responsible for managing the education of the young people that live in their locale, and they run the state maintained schools, and ensure adequate provision for everybody. And part of that is finding, sourcing and funding alternative provision for children who, for whatever reason, are struggling to manage the setting that is their name setting, their name school, or don't have an appropriate setting currently.
So we provide educational services for those young people.
So you really, An educational establishment. Most people, when they think about equine assisted stuff, they're not thinking about getting kids through exams. They're not thinking about someone who is finding it difficult to go to school, wants to go on to university needs help with this academically, as well as, you know, just feeling better. It's not going to occur to many people who want to get into the equine assisted field, that it's even a possibility.
To become an educational resource to this degree. How did you get into this? How did, how did this, how did this work?
Well, that was my background originally. So I am a qualified teacher. So it's Lenny, my wife we both have QTS qualified teacher status. So I spent the first part of my working life as a science teacher initially in mainstream education. And then in the sector that is for young people who have not managed mainstream education. So it's what we call pupil referral units. So there's young people who have. been excluded or removed from their original settings for a variety of reasons.
So I came from an educational background and so did Lenny. She was an art teacher and the head of a very successful school in Trafford for a long time. So I think for me, it, it was a very natural marriage for what I was doing previously and adding in the movement method. And the approach is that I learned from you into.
Into that provision came very naturally and before I was running making momentum I was using movement method in the classroom in the pupil referral unit, but the young people I was working with there as well
Okay, you have this background in education You know how to mix Nervous system stuff and brain stuff ie therapeutic stuff with academics. That's something you're trained in. It's something you're good at How does the horse come into this? How do you how do you how do you help people with that?
It depends really, because being child led, it depends really on the needs of the person that you're working with. So, obviously, you have the horses, as I know, because I listen to these podcasts, we've already had these discussions before about regulating the nervous system and how the horse helps to do that. So, we use the horses within the day, both as a regulatory tool, so everybody rides. if they want to at some point during the day, they always spend some time with the horses.
That might be sensory work, it might be grooming, it might be groundwork, but we also use the horses from an academic perspective. So anything that we are learning, we can learn from horseback or to do with the horse as well. So the like nutrition, we apply to the horses physics, we apply to the horses, mathematics, we apply to the horses. So they're learning in the saddle as well as Getting the regulatory boost of being around the horses.
There's the academic learning happening at the same time. And we also follow the movement method principles. So whatever any child is interested in, we include those things. So we have a music therapist who comes in and delivers a couple of hours a week. We work with her. One of our young people is really interested in French at the moment. So we're working around.
Learning some more modern foreign languages and yeah, we just do everything based around their interests and their passions and their personal drives.
Can you give us a couple of examples of if you're trying to teach a math concept or if you're trying to teach a French concept or a physics concept or perhaps all three at the same time? How are you going to, how are you doing that with the horse? Just give us a scenario.
Okay, so that like this things like calculations of distance, speed and time that we do during the crazy time activities. So, we set up jumping lanes or lunging the horses or moving between the poles. We set up stopwatches, we time them, we do the mathematics in that way. We can also do things based around treasure hunts. So if we're looking for say vocab for French.
So the young man who's interested in French at the moment is also interested in Pokemon, so we've got, a French Pokemon book, and we've been doing
Frenchman,
Frenchman, we've been we've been learning Pokemon acquiring we've been acquiring vocab, like, you know, as, as he moves through the space doing that. So each individual. Lesson or activity or concept, we're always trying to think about how we could embed movement in it and how we could adapt it so that it's as engaging as possible and as kind of, much opportunity for movement and regulation as possible as well.
So when I visited you back in August we were. I called it a trailer because of the American audience, but in English we call it a caravan. Flora,
flora caravan, yes.
And for the Americans who are listening, you think trailer, you think that's huge, big thing. No, no, no. An English caravan is much more modest. It's, it's, it's, it's cozy. It's a, it's, it's a small thing. And English caravaning is a, it's a culture. And so you have this. Lovely little caravan on your property while we were looking through your your place. You said oh, yes at that table in that caravan We've had a couple of school refusers sitting their GSEs at that caravan.
And for those listeners who don't know what a GCSE is, that's the exams that you do that decide whether you're going to go to college or not. They don't get you into a college, but they decide whether you are college material or not in the UK. Yes,
it's the, it's the post secondary. So, age 16, it's the formal national exams that everybody sits.
Right. So you've got a school refuser. Your job is to get them into college. How do you go from? I'm not going to school.
I don't want to learn anything I don't even want to come out of my room and maybe I mean, you know indulging in some other self destructive behaviors to coming to you working through the horse and being Other movement based things and nature basis and then ending up actually able to sit in that Caravan and sit an exam that gets them into college Can you talk us through like the one two, three four of that
so it's about breaking down the barriers so the It used to be termed school refusal. It's normally referred to now as emotionally based school non attendance. So EBSNA or emotionally based school avoidance. Yeah. So I think I think that while language isn't everything, I think it is important to recognize that what presents as a refusal to attend is actually Broadly a trauma response. Very true, well put. So, saying that they are refusing indicates choice.
Young people are, when it becomes that extreme and that embedded feel that unsafe and feel unable to, it's an impossibility for them to manage the school environment that is their named educational setting. I have yet to meet a young person who doesn't want to be successful, doesn't want to do well. That can look like different things for different people, but they all have ambitions and dreams. Desires and, you know, the wish and the will to do something.
It's just about setting them up in an environment where those things are accessible for them. So I think the first thing. Is that we look nothing like those spaces that have been historically traumatic for that young person and we come with the, the expectation is, how do we work collaboratively together to make whatever your ambitions and your aspirations are achievable for you and what does that look like. And the first thing is always.
Coming down out of that space of anxiety, trauma, autistic burnout. So the, the, the primary thing is always the relationship connection and the opportunity for regulation and getting back into a space where your cortisol is low, your oxytocin is up and you feel calm and able and ready and regulated so that you can access education in some form.
And then from there, it's all hinged onto interests and what the young person what their particular ambitions are and how do we sequentially set them up for success. So if it's, I'd really like to work in X field, we go and look what the equivalent college courses are, what the entry requirements are for those college courses. And then we talk about how we can get you to the place where those things are achievable.
And because it's collaborative and we're working together and it's all focused around. things that they feel are meaningful, the barriers fall away and they can actually attend and access and access the work and, and do well. So we have children coming with zero attendance to sort of You know, low 30 percent attendance that are on 100 percent attendance with us. And we have a hundred percent success rate with post 16 transitions and sitting those external exams in some format.
Some of them are not GCSEs. Some of them are functional skills or other types of qualifications, but everybody manages to attain something and move on to somewhere.
I mean, this is incredibly impressive. Again, can you just talk us through some scenarios? How does the. the horse help with this? Most people wouldn't be able to see a horse bringing you into an exam space.
Well, for example, when we've had young people coming to do formal qualifications, we might set up the day so they can have some time with the horses first, so they can move into that space as regulated as possible. We work really closely with the LEA and with schools, and we have great support with the schools that we work with. We've got and, you know, we make sure that exam entry access arrangements are such that if people require breaks, they're able to take them.
If they require a scribe, they're able to have them you know, whatever they need in order to make that experience accessible, they get. And because we're in a space that is. You know, very rich in those positive sensory triggers and free from the negative ones. Again, it releases that pressure from the young person. They're able to focus on the exam as the difficult thing, not managing the environment as the difficult thing.
I'm wondering, just in my head as you were talking, I'm imagining somebody sitting in exam while they're on a horse.
Well, this year, actually, they've just changed the exam access now. So for the first time, the next cohort going through will be able to listen to music. I'm not sure how that's going to be managed yet because I haven't looked at the the regulations yet. But there is an understanding, I think, that there are things that make are helpful and we should be providing people with the opportunity to succeed with those things, but helpful, whereas previously you wouldn't have been able to do that.
Yeah. I'm thinking about, I'm sure you're thinking about the exam halls that we sat in you know, and it wasn't a caravan in a lovely farmyard with the ducks outside the window, you know, let alone listening to music. And I'm just wondering if the next step is like, okay, you know, here you are on the horse, here's a, here's a, you know, we're going to have like a movable desk on the saddle in front of you
and
we'll keep the horse moving for your oxytocin and have at it.
It would be nice, wouldn't it? It would be nice.
You know, the way, but the way you describe it, it actually sounds not outside the bounds of possibility. And one can often be so pessimistic about where education is going or, you know, the kids getting medicated and so on and so on. But yet.
At the same time, there's places like Making Momentum, with you, that are the exact opposite of that, which are coming in with movement, nature, horses, and so on, and getting those same kids Who perhaps otherwise might be put on medications or whatever or marked out as no hopers getting them through their actual exams, which is still the measure by which our society Judges, you know, whether you're successful or failing, you know failing in Education so just listening to you talk through that
Makes me much more hopeful than I have been of late. So good.
I'm glad I'm glad I have inspired some hope.
Okay, go ahead. And I'm going to ask you my next question.
I was just gonna say, I think that that, yeah, I think everybody there, there are Working in education is a really difficult way to earn money, and I don't think there's anybody there who doesn't profoundly believe and want to support young people to succeed and believe in their capacity to succeed. It's just knowledge sometimes, or I think confidence to try things that are a little bit left field or a little bit outside of the box.
And you know, there's not a lot of, you know, that space for innovation, there's not a lot of space because everybody is so pressed for time and so overloaded. And, you know, I think if you're doing something that is slightly different from everybody else, it can feel quite vulnerable.
But I think everybody that's there on the ground definitely has the passion and the drive to want to do that and support young people, you wouldn't, you wouldn't go and work in a school if you didn't have that, because there's much easier ways to generate income. You've got to be there because you love it.
Without a doubt, you're right. However, at the same time, you know, one hears a lot of people who are working within that system saying, look, I'm burned out. I'm ground down. I'm, you know,
I think it breaks adults the same way it breaks children.
So before, before I move on to my next sort of official podcast questions, do Do you think do you think things like your, your project making momentum, are you going to be an anomaly as the future unfolds? Or do you think places like yours will be more and more the norm?
I think the ethos and the values that underpin it will be more and more the norm. I think that spaces like us will exist for the children who have the biggest challenges and find school environments, environments the most difficult. I don't think typical school will ever look like what we offer, but I think there are elements of what we offer that, that will and should be in typical schools.
Are you seeing, I'm getting further and further away from my question this year, but it's, I can't, I can't go, not go down this rabbit hole. Do you think that, have you, are you, are you seeing any evidence of that? Are you, are you seeing schools beginning in, at least in your area, beginning to implement? Stuff that you are Yeah,
I see, I see people being invited into run meditation workshops to us locally. I see people, schools starting to do more and more from like a forest school perspective. There's a very excellent independent, small, independent school down the road from us who has just won an award and then their practice is very like our practice. I see. There's definitely a shift.
What's the name of that school out of interest in case people want to know?
It's called Beach Hall.
Mm
hmm. And it's a really lovely, lovely school. Very nice school. And Yeah, they've they've, I would, I'm not sure what the name of the award they got was, but it's really, it's a really lovely setting. And I think I do see a shift in understanding towards that. And so many primary schools are now including like forest school type elements and outdoor learning and outdoor classrooms. I'm seeing more and more of that.
I'm also seeing schools being more receptive to you know, I've done training, been into schools, offered training, offered through the teachers unions to school practitioners from a number of different Schools across the sort of Northwest. I think there is an awareness that we are currently not meeting need. And one of the things I really love working about working with these young people is that I think that they are a barometer.
So, They let you know that they are struggling, but that probably means that everybody is struggling. So, being clued in to these learners and their experience of the physical space of the classroom and the content of the lesson is a really great. They're the canaries in the mineshaft. It's a really great way to sort of sit back, you know. Sit back and think what are you doing? Well, what are your areas for improvement? What could you change as a classroom practitioner?
Because if they're struggling everyone's struggling, but some children just hide it better than others
okay, so you started as the same horsey horse obsessed girl that I was and Here you are delivering extraordinary things through horses You Take us back to the beginning. Take us back to your family. Take us back to your mum and dad. Take us back to how does, how does one go from just being a, you know, standard pony obsessed girl, person, boy, and ending up where you've ended up because it's unusual and it's extraordinary. Talk us through that chronology, please.
So, I and my brother started having riding lessons at a local riding school mobily riding school, which unfortunately no longer exists. But they, it was a very, I think everybody in Cheshire went riding and mobily riding school at some point, it was sort of the local center. And my mum had always loved horses and wanted to ride as a little girl, but hadn't really had the financial means to ever do it. with any kind of degree of frequency or you know, to any great extent.
So I think when we were little, she really wanted us to be able to have the opportunities that she hadn't been able to have when she was younger. And maybe a little bit for her own benefit too, because she would have a lesson while we had a lesson as well. So she got to ride as well. And then I rode at riding schools in the area and had, you know, really, I was really lucky with the quality and the standard of tuition I got from.
Both at Moberly Riding School and also by a lovely gentleman called Joe Gates, who I went and worked as a Saturday Girl for. So I worked at the riding school, got the ponies ready, and then in return I got a What a ride. And that's back in the days where you could do that. I don't know that that's so much a thing anymore. But and then I
wonder how anyone gets their skills anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just true. And then I had my first pony when I was about, I think I was 13 or 14 at the Welsh Cobb and then, yeah, they've kind of been a a fixture ever since.
And what did you do? Just again, quickly for listeners who aren't familiar with the UK Cheshire, which is where Alex grew up and is still operating is one of the great horsey areas of the UK. Partly because it's one of the areas that has large amounts of dairy farming, which means that there's fox hunting that goes across big, big hedges. So it's known. Within the UK as a place where people ride.
Well, they have to kind of ride well to get across that country So talk to us about the the types of riding you got involved with and then how that parlayed Into the equine assisted stuff over time.
So I had when I had the my first ponies, I did a lot of showing and many did mountain and moorland working hunter.
What does that mean if you're not from the UK?
Yeah. So mountain and moorland are our native ponies. They're either up a mountain or on the moorland. So that's your Welsh cobs. Your Dales, your Fells, your Highlands, and they, yes or your, or your native.
Or your little evil bastards, basically.
No, lovely, lovely horses. And Working Hunter is a showing class where you have, I don't know if there's an American equivalent. You do rustic jumps but they're, you know, It's not cross country, they're show jumps. So they, they will fall if you knock them. You do a round of rustic jumps that's supposed to simulate what you might find in the hunting field.
So you might get water trays, you might get brush fences to simulate a hedge, you might have gates that you have to jump ditches, those types of things. And then afterwards you do a ridden show to show your ponies way of going and schooling. And then they strip them down and look at confirmation and it's kind of a cumulative class. You get your places awarded off all of those elements. So yeah, that was that's Mountain Wall and Working Hunter.
So I did that first and then I rode in our local riding clubs and pony clubs. So I was also doing some dressage and show jumping and cross country. And then I did some eventing and then affiliated eventing as I got older and the horses. Got bigger. I joined British venting. We did everything. I also did like endurance riding and La Trek, which is similar to working equitation, but over.
A bigger space so like you do a day of orienteering on horseback, and then you do control of the paces so there's a corridor that's marked out you have to counter as slow as you can and walk as fast as you can without breaking pace. And then you do a series of obstacles that are set out around. A couple of fields and they again are supposed to be the things that you might meet out if you were on a, a track.
So there's steps and banks and you have to get horses in and out of trailers and they have to stand in one area and you leave them and walk away and it's supposed to show that your horse is an obedient, capable. track leader type of horse. We did that and we did anything, anything I could go to, anything I could do. I always just wanted to learn. I always just wanted to have fun. I didn't do anything very well. I'm never, I'm not particularly competitive. And I also suffer quite badly.
I'd suffer quite badly from from performance anxiety as well. So I, my worst riding, I always did. under the eagle eye of judges, but I just wanted to do everything. I just wanted to spend as much time with my horses as possible. So if there was any, anywhere to go, any demo to watch, anything to try, any activity, I would always do it.
And we hunted and we did you know, just everything, everything I could do, pony club rallies, anything that the riding club was offering, any visiting trainer, any clinic. I did, I did it all. But yeah, we did that and then
believe that, but yeah,
yeah, well, you can, you can look the results up. I promise you. And then yeah, over time, I guess, the horse that I still have actually that I bought in 1996, he's 32. Next year. So Louie is still going and he was the horse that I did most of that with as a teenager and in my 20s and he actually came away with me to university twice. So he did my undergraduate degree with me at Nottingham.
I did an environmental biology degree and he also did a postgraduate diploma at Aberystwyth that I did in Equine Science.
Is he going for his PhD?
He, by hook or by crook, yes, hopefully we'll get him to the end of it, yeah. So he's very well educated. It's a very well educated horse in every sense of the word. And yeah, he just, we just did everything, everything with him. And had a lot of fun and met a lot of wonderful people. And I was very, again, very lucky to have input from some really great supportive trainers. I feel very blessed to have had a lot of people move through my life and share their knowledge with me.
Okay, so how does this suddenly become an equine assisted gig? This is all very much, you know, riding, good riding, sport riding, educational riding, learning. Yeah, where does it suddenly go into service?
So the two things kind of were running in parallel. So, I guess if we kind of take a jump forward to around, it was like 2016 2016, 2017, I was working. I had left mainstream education because I had become frustrated with it. I had become frustrated with feeling like we were sort of cramming square pegs in round holes and it didn't feel right. It didn't feel productive. I wasn't enjoying it. And exactly what you were saying before about the adults becoming burnt out.
That's really what happened to me. And I left my job and went to go and work at the pupil referral unit, which I liked better. It was more relationship based and it felt more nurturing and more focused on the individual rather than this kind of educational conveyor belt. That is, unfortunately. what mainstream education is often like. And we went to, at the same time I was working with a trainer called Charlotte Whitlam who had recently moved into Cheshire from Portugal.
So Charlotte is Swedish, but had come via the Valences, the great horse trainers in Portugal, had been working there for a while and then had moved into the UK. And we started having lessons with her. And I went to a lecture demo that she was participating in and one of the speakers at the lecture demo was talking about horseboy. And it was a very odd, I had not, I had never heard of horseboy up until this point. I hadn't seen the film, I hadn't read the books, I had literally no knowledge.
But she just shared her experience. And it was a very odd, a very odd kind of experience. Eureka type moments. So the only thing I can equate it to is if you ride, you know, when you hit the perfect stride and everything slows down.
And just focuses and it was like all these sort of mirrors lined up in my mind and I had this perfect moment of clarity and this perfect shot of everything she was saying ran so true with my, my background with the horses, my own experience of being around the horses, my own experience as a human being, and what I felt about working with young people and the education system, it just made so much sense. It was like a little bell going off in my head.
So I came home and I looked you up and I emailed. And I was like, can I come? And I did. So I came to Texas for the summer and did my horseboy training with you guys. And I didn't, again, showing my ignorance. I didn't know until I got there and you started showing me the patterns. I was like, Oh, I've, I've done these before. I didn't know the connection. And then because it's what I had been doing with Charlotte. So yeah, it was, I think, I don't know how it happened. It was kismet.
But it was like, Oh, this is, this is what I've, this is what all this other stuff has happened for. This is the preparation that what, this is what I've been waiting for. This is what it's been getting me ready for. And the universe kind of delivered at the perfect time.
What was so interesting? I remember when I first met you and you came out to Texas and this is quite a few years ago. And, you know, I'm saying, okay, this is how we train our horses. And we've got to get, you know, collection for the oxytocin for the communication and calm down the nervous system and so on. And. You, I, I demo it and then you take the horse and start doing, I'm like, Oh, you've done this before. And the level of competence was extraordinary.
And then he said, Oh, Charlotte Wittbom and then, okay, and now she's been with the Valenzas Valenzas. Well, they're my trainers, the Valenzas, and it was a very strange moment to have this kind of, okay, we're absolutely coming from the same place, but what, what prompted you to go to Charlotte? And by the way, we, we need to do a big ups for Charlotte here. Yeah. Yeah. She's ace.
If anyone is listening, if you're in the UK and you want to get proper job trained with a horse, go to Charlotte Wittbom. And it doesn't matter whether it's dressage, she can take you all the way through. It doesn't matter if it's just general riding or horsemanship, she can take you all the way through. And she's just such a nice person.
Yeah, she's lovely.
But what's so interesting was, why did you, because you'd come like me, you'd come through the hunting world, you'd come through the jumping world, the eventing world. And then suddenly you found yourself in this classical riding world. What, what, what, what made you do that?
I think it's almost inevitable.
I think if you, I think if you spend, if, if you spend enough time with horses doing anything and you are interested and you're kind of approaching it from a, a, a way of wanting to absorb and learn, I think everybody circles back to the classical tradition at some point because It is the root of everything and any type of work you're doing and, and knowing what I know now, looking back on all of the stuff that I had had before and it's something I say to the people that I am working with now,
like you, maybe other people don't explain it as explicitly, but if you have somebody coming to work you know, a horse behaviorist, what's the first thing he does? Everybody yields the quarters. It might look slightly different, but everybody's moving through the patterns. Everybody's asking the horse to cross the midline. Everybody's building the BDNF because that's what creates the yes brained horse. Maybe they don't explain it in the same way.
Maybe they aren't aware that's what they're doing. They just know that it works. But if you're a tiny kid learning to load a pony and it won't go on the trailer, the first thing somebody tells you to do is circle it. move it, get it to move it, move it away from me.
Specifically get the inside hind leg under the point of gravity. Yeah.
Exactly. So I think if you're, if you're kind of, interested in being better at working horses from the ground, understanding them better, producing them, having them be sounder, having them be more on your side in a way that is. You know, collaborative and low force. You, you were always going to end up in that place. I think it's kind of unavoidable, unavoidable, really.
Okay. You, you said three things that, that some people may not be familiar with. And I think it'd be helpful if you explained, you said the patterns, you said the BDNF, and you said the yes horse. What are the patterns? What is BDNF and why do patterns and BDNF get you a yes horse? Can you explain it?
Absolutely. It'd be my pleasure. So, when the system that we work with was sort of not, not designed, but described by the Valences. So it's the classical tradition that everybody uses, but this is their way of presenting the information. They all involve initially working the horse from the ground in these set patterns. So you And do it in a variety of different ways.
You can work a horse from a cavesson on a long line, you can work them with the reins, but you're always asking them to move the body in these certain set patterns, which basically involve either flexion or counterflection and either the quarters moving around the shoulder or the shoulder moving around the quarters. And every time the horse moves away from you, you're asking them to engage, lift their core and step the inside hind under the midline to produce.
Method of carriage that is the classical idea of how a horse should look when you are mounted on it. It's, it's about furnishing the horse the best way possible, producing it the best way possible so that it can successfully carry your weight with the maximum amount of comfort and perform the movement to the best of your ability. It's abilities, you know, whatever those movements happen to be, any of the dressage movements. So those are the patterns.
It's a flexion or counter flexion, shoulders around quarters or quarters around shoulders. There's two
patterns.
Yes, and you move, you move, there's variations on two patterns. One for the
inside hind leg, one for the outside hind leg. The outside
hind leg, yeah, and inside hind to outside and, and vice versa. So you're, you're moving them round. It's exactly the same thing as people, if you're having a dressage lesson or a flat work lesson, it's what your trainer tells you from the ground to do as a, as a mounted rider, but we instill it first on the horse. In the groundwork, so it's one person on the ground teaching the horse how to move what the cues mean and how the how to move their body. And so there's the patterns.
And then the result of that is because of how the brain engages. through those movement patterns, because the horse is having to balance and shift its weight and move its limbs across its midline. It triggers a set of physiological responses within the brain. So it engages something, a release called something called BDNF, which is the brain derived neurotrophic factor.
Brain derived neurotrophic factor.
So It means that derived as in, its, its nearby.
Brian's, Brian's brain driving,
driving tractors. Yeah,
driving tractors. The thrown, like both smart like tractors,
It's a growth factor essentially. So, it, what you are doing is producing these chemical cues in your brain that the, the brain produces. So brain derived. signals that it is made within the brain. Neurotrophic means that it produces the growth of neurons. So yes, so plants can be phototrophic. So they grow towards light. This is neurotrophic. It's the growth of brain cells, brain neurons, and then factor because that's what it's doing. That's the chemical key. That's what it causes.
So you're generating neuroplasticity. You're developing, learning, you're creating new pathways. And it's really lovely because that doesn't only happen for the horse. It also happens for you because as you're moving across the ground and moving through the patterns, you also are crossing your midline. You're also doing bilateral engagement because your left hand, your right hand, your left foot and your right foot are all doing a hokey cokey at different places and different times.
So it does the same thing in your brain. And it's a really nice window into working collaboratively with the horse, because this is something you're doing together. You are mirroring them, they're mirroring you. It forms a beautiful relationship. And that neuroplasticity that develops mean that this means that the horse becomes this yes horse. So they, they are in that brain state where there, there's a level of arousal that means they're switched on, but they're calm.
So they're looking for the challenge. They, they don't approach things. Fearfully and it's so essential for our horses in particular because our sessions can look very strange.
You know, you might have a child that comes one day and decides they want to do something that involves, you know, waving flags, or we had a young man who used to come, he invented a brilliant game, which involved lobbing space hoppers off the top of the horse, cantering off the top of the horse, lobbing space hoppers, like tag.
It was like dodge ball, but with space hoppers and, you know, the horse has to just come with you and be accepting of these really weird scenarios that with, that often involve. mad things. And it's, it, you know, there's obviously desensitization that is happening as well, but a lot of it is around just that headspace where the horse has this neuroplasticity and wants to work with you and for you. That's what the yes horse is.
Yeah. Okay. So basically you're talking about growing a horse in your brain. And growing a monkey, a human, a new brain, while working with that horse, both of them crossing the midline the whole time, getting the speed ANF thing. How does that then help the person, the kid, the adult, who might be the client, the service user, who's on, on board with that horse or working that horse on the ground in a therapeutic way? How, how do they get neuroplasticity through that same thing?
Well, the same, so the same kind of, because we're all mammals, right? So we have the same pathways, we have the same basic kind of underlying neurobiology.
So, in the same way as the person on the ground is engaging the vestibular system and balancing and you know, receiving all that BDNF and engaging neuroplasticity and switching on all of those neurons on those new pathways, the same thing has happened to the person that's mounted because they're balancing on the horse that's moving dynamically through three phases. Sorry through three planes. So they're moving forward through space.
Three dimensions.
Yeah, they're moving. And as, as they're moving that they move, there's a, the swing of the call left to right. So you're going that way as well. And then you're also going up and down in space. So you're kind of being moved through space. forward, sideways and up and down at the same time. So you're getting a lot on
top of one of
the other person on top. Yeah. So you're you know, getting a big hit of, of movement all the time of regulatory movement all the time. And it engages the same systems in the brain. So you're getting the BDNF for the person as well. And it's also producing these, great experiences that are just really good fun. Like we just laugh. We just, there's just, it's just constant giggles and laughing and singing and joy. It's just a lovely space to be in that feels very different from anything else.
And because they can do things on the horse. That they maybe wouldn't be able to do independently and because they have that feeling of like autonomy and control, like, we want to go here. That's where we're going. They get to decide what games they're going to play, how it's going to be set up. And, you know, that creates a huge sense of empowerment and just great feeling for the young person who probably doesn't have a lot of autonomy and choice in other parts of their lives.
You just used the word joy. What makes working in this way? particularly joyful for you. I've seen how you work. I've seen how joyful it is. Why?
That's an interesting question. Why? Why? I think, I think the same things that are true for the young people we work with are true for us as practitioners. So I'm also in an environment where I'm able to fully meet my regulatory movement needs. And I think you know, I'm sure anybody who is listening to this podcast knows how good it is to be around horses and how.
That you know, the Winston Churchill quote something about the outside of a horse that's good for an inside, the inside of a man, you know, they, they, they're lovely. They're just lovely beings to, to share a space with. And even when they're being a bit, you know, fruity or a bit naughty, it's still fun. You know, I never, I have always felt like that. But it's, I think it's, It feels productive. I get a great sense of satisfaction out of doing what we're doing. It feels helpful.
It feels I think if you're spending time with other people and everybody's having fun and a good time and, you know, everybody's feeling good about it, there's no way for you not to get carried along in that way because we're social apes and we share those emotional states. So it is, you know, it's the whole tribe is having a good time and we all laugh and have fun. It's great.
What you're describing there doesn't sound like a classical dressage lesson where normally you're being told, you know, that's all wrong and that shit. And it also doesn't sound much like a sort of regular therapeutic riding lesson where one might observe, you know, kids being led in circles.
Maybe doing some things like posting a letter in a letterbox or something and it also doesn't sound much like, the normal equine assisted thing where one might be brought to a rampen or an arena with some horses doing some stuff and invited to a in a rather serious way interpret, you know, the horses might or might not be doing in a way that helps you reflect on, you know, your own emotional state.
It's not that any of those three things that I've just described, the dressage lesson, the therapeutic riding lesson, or the equine assisted session aren't helpful because, and they clearly are, but they're not necessarily joyful. And by joyful, what I mean is You wouldn't look at them and say, oh, that's good crack, like, well, I want to do that because that just looks like so much fun, you know, you like, you might look at it and go, Oh, that's quite serious. I could sort of see.
Oh, you know how there might be a, you know, a helpful thing there. And, you know, we're all required to be a bit reverential around this, but what you're, what you're describing sounds quite iconoclastic. It sounds quite, yeah. in a funny way rebellious. How is it that you can do that and make it feel like you're breaking the rules while at the same time observing these classical patterns that you talked about? How can observing these classical patterns help you to feel that you've broken free?
That almost sounds like a paradox. Yeah,
I, I think, I think embracing
what's the, what's, yeah,
Yeah, I think embracing the chaos and you have to, I think, you know, if you remember what the classical patterns were originally intended to produce, there is nothing reverential or controlled about a battlefield or a bullfighting because you're talking
about training the horse for war. Right.
Yeah.
Right.
So, I mean, obviously. We have a lot less death and goring, but we, you know, we have the same sort of chaos. Hopefully we have the same sorts of chaotic res we responding in the moment, I think is the key thing.
So yes, that's true, but when you are producing anything from practice into its, implementation in the same way as when you're coming across the hunting field up until the hedge, or you're moving through your cross country course, or you're going onto your battlefield, you know, in with your warhorse, or you're going into a bullfighting arena, or, and we are responding at a moment in time, and things do not go as planned. in those environments run predictably to plan.
You have to, there is an element of being responsive in the moment. And I think that's, that's all we're doing is just being responsive in the moment to where the young person is emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, what they want to be doing in that moment. And always with a focus of the fun, the joy and getting that feeling of, you know, euphoria for the young person. I want them to leave with that feeling.
It's almost like we're taking the way of training a horse to basically harm our fellow man, which is, but it seems to have this Feel good by product and this neuroplasticity by product which I guess it has to otherwise why would the horse Change its brain so it could go into the battlefield and Then using that same thing to heal your fellow man rather than harm your fellow man That's an intriguing concept. Can you, can you just speak to that a little bit? I
think something that you had said to me when and I think you only said it once. I've never heard you say it again, but it really struck true to me. When I was doing my training, you talked about the environment and the fact that if you think about paradise or kind of the, you know, the, the religious representation of what paradise is, the garden of Eden, and Elysium fields, all of those things, it's nature with the danger removed.
So, you know, that that's how you communicated that when you were training me and I think I think it's the same thing. So it's the excitement with the danger removed. So, you know, in any moment we're doing these things that.
sound hectic, but because of how carefully we produce the horses and how well staffed we are and how well managed we are and how switched on we are there is, you can just embrace the moment of this kind of fantastical experience, but there's the, the, it is done in a very controlled way where everything is safe.
So exciting the sympathetic nervous system without it going over into the red zone.
Yes.
So that it inspires you to. I guess that's the nature of fun, isn't it? That's what fun is, right? Yeah,
it's riding the rollercoaster. You know, so that sensation and that fun and the kind of, the concept of doing something that feels extreme, but doing it in a very safe, controlled way.
Now, some people might say that word extreme or that word exciting, that has no place in a therapeutic environment. Why does it work to actually have that in a therapeutic environment? And what makes it actually work? Safe like what are you doing? You've talked to us through these patterns, but what are you doing to a horse that makes it possible to make it seem to the kid or the service user or the client that things are a little bit wild?
But to actually know, you the practitioner, they're knowing you've got to be responsible for keeping these kids that are coming from an educational authority or whatever, like, properly safe.
So,
I
think it's having really clear communication. With the young person with the horse with the staff about what is happening, what everybody's role is within a session. So, we have a very high staff to person ratio. And, you know, if somebody is doing something that involves like a game of tag or something like that, there will be.
Members of staff who are sort of hamming up the role of being silly and throwing themselves around the ground, but equally there will be people that are sidewalking with the horse and the rider and, and, and there as a backup and an extra pair of hands and maintaining and monitoring the situation. And we always have very clear kind of open lines of communication whereby anybody at any point absolutely has total permission and carte blanche to say this doesn't feel good.
And I think we should stop and we do. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't really happen because of how carefully everything is set up. But at any point, if anybody doesn't feel comfortable, they are absolutely empowered to say that and we change what we're doing.
You know, where we arrived at from, from what you just, to what you just said is if you think back to all of the horse education and knowledge that you've gone through in order to know how to prepare a horse for this job, to prepare a horse for that job, to know how to make a horse safe and effective in this type of show ring or in the hunt field where things are a bit chaotic or this or this, then adding that classical riding component and then adding humans that can put all this together.
adding some brain science. Okay. I can see how that all goes, particularly if you have the right people and the right horses, you know, preparing well together. At the same time, it sounds like you also have to be prepared to risk a little bit the apparent loss of control in order to gain some sort of mental or emotional step forward. How do you, how do you bridge that? That, that's a tricky thing to bridge. How do you, how do you do that?
I think not being, it's sort of releasing your own ego. So How do you do that? I
mean, I've been trying to do that for 500 years and, yeah.
I think, I think approaching things with a sense of curiosity and wonder. And, you know, and, and, and seeing what happens and understanding that it is, it's a it's approaching it as play as an, as experimentation and, you know, trying things out and not having you know, not, not having, not be too, not being too strongly married to the idea of your concept of how things will work out or what should be happening. The only thing that I want to happen is for the young person that's.
with us to leave the space feeling happier and more regulated than they were when they arrived. That's my only aim. How we get there is dictated by them and It, I don't mind if they come and they don't want to have, they don't want to ride or do anything with the horses at all. Sometimes sessions look like that. And sometimes sessions are very calm and peaceful because that's how the young person presents their need at that time. Sometimes we lie in the sand and make shapes out of the clouds.
Sometimes we go for a walk and collect flowers. Sometimes, you know, it might just be grooming and cuddling and spending time with the horses. It's a whole. So the gamut of allowing that young person to meet what their needs are in that moment and being set up in such a way that you can be responsive to however they show up, whatever they come with in that moment.
Okay, so I'm a kid and I come to you and I'm not interested in horses at all. And I find myself being sent there for whatever reason. And what I'm interested in is Deadpool or a particular Pokemon character. Right. Maybe you're not interested in that. And they really don't want to engage with the horse, but your job is to, as you say, leave them feeling self regulated and, you know, as joyful as possible. And also perhaps to teach them something.
Yeah. So. I arrive in my ten year old self, which frankly I never grew out of, so, and then I say, I communicate pretty strongly to you, no horse, and, or Deadpool, and, or this Pokemon, and I don't like your ducks, and I don't like your, this poo that's on the ground, and I don't like, I'm all about my my keeping my running shoes clean and I don't want to be told anything and I arrive In your yard. What do you do?
So I would provide As much as I could that was hinged around those special interests that are, you know, specific things that have been indicated to me that a young person wants, and it's in our intake form, we always ask and ask what they like and try and have as much of that available as possible. So if you turn up and you're not keen on the horses. That's absolutely fine. We won't do that at all. You can completely dictate that.
It's no issue but there might be like, you know, we have to find Deadpool's limbs and put him, he, he regrows things, right, Deadpool? So maybe we have to go and find his new limbs that he needs to regrow and they'll be around the farmyard somewhere and then maybe we've got to paint them and put them together to like a giant push pun, push pin puppet type thing.
And What I have found is over time, even people who, young people who were initially quite resistant or a little nervous of the horses, I think that comes from two places. First of all, it's lack of familiarity because horses are big and if you've not spent a lot of time with them, they can be quite intimidating. And also it's a feeling of demand.
And most young people, with a little bit of time, once they realize that actually the no is going to be listened to and there's no expectation, there's no demand on my part for them to do anything other than what they want to do, those barriers begin to fall away. See the horses and sort of spend time on the yard and see other people come in and going and the horse is being worked in the background, that natural curiosity comes out and eventually they will want to try.
That might look like they are just using the horse as a transport from Like around a treasure hunt or from point A or point B, we, we have a nice site here with lots of different pockets of things. We've got a woodland and a river and you know, we might be just riding to get somewhere because it's easier than walking. The legs
get tired and suddenly the horse becomes an attractive option.
But equally, if, If, like I said, if you, if you have let go of that ego of the thing of that, you know, the child is coming to ride, if you don't have that as the core principle, if the core principle is just enjoyment and joy, it doesn't matter to me if the child chooses not to ride. It doesn't matter to me if they never get on a horse, as long as they are leaving more regulated and with a sense of joy and, you know, accomplishment and they've had a good time.
And it's not it, you know, it's, it's an, it's about personal preference as well. So it might be that this, me as a person or a another member of staff is not the right person for that child. So maybe we try them with a different member of staff. Children usually gravitate towards the adult whose energy they like the best, and we tend to buddy them up in that way. But you know, for you, you, you pretty quickly know. the children who, for them, it is not the right thing.
The horses are not the right thing. And then you have to find something else. You have to find another way of getting into that sort of emotional and physiological space.
How often does that happen?
Rarely, very rarely. I think The whole time we've been doing this, I think we've only had two children who were a hard no and never wanted to do it. We've had children who were slow burners and it took a long time and then, you know, we've also had families who, you know, for various reasons have moved away or, you know, had medical challenges or whatever. That means they've gone on to something else, but it's unusual for, for somebody not to, want to do it eventually.
But I think when the pressure is off and they can do it in their own time, that natural curiosity and that trust in that these adults aren't going to coerce or manipulate me into doing something that is counter to my own interests. So, you know, they are more willing to try something because they know that they can say, no, thank you. I've had enough or I want to stop now and not have an agenda pushed because there isn't an agenda, doesn't matter. Okay, that's
the kid. Now, what if a teacher or a, someone brings the kids out from a local educational authority or a parent says, look, I've come here for equine therapy or equine assisted something. And this kid, Young person is supposed to engage with a horse and that's what I've come here.
I'm spending the money and they must do this and Then let's say also a kid comes in with and they're just on their tablet They're just on the phone and you've got someone saying no get off your phone You know, this is time now for the war and you see this whole conflict unfolding. What's your strategy? What do you do?
I put them on the horse with the phone or the tablet. They want to sit on it. They can sit on the horse and sit on the phone and the tablet, and we will just go for a little hack and they will, will either long line or work from the ground so that the horse is moving comfortably for them. And if they want to be on it, they can be on it, but very quickly. It's a regulatory tool. And if, if you don't, sweat it, they get what they need from it and move on. Often it's to do with the transition.
So, you know, if, if a young person, the transition into a new space can be difficult and the device is a way of like shutting out that stimulus. So, you know, that's fine. You can have a little watch of some videos while we're getting ready or, you know, or doing something, or you can just sit on the horse and watch videos, but pretty quickly, again, the demand aspect, if it's, if it's not, it doesn't become an issue if we don't make it one.
Right. And I think, go ahead, sorry, and I was going
to say, I think we, we sort of talk through these things very explicitly when. Providers or parents come at first, and I also stress the point that this is their family, they are the expert in their child, and if what I'm suggesting doesn't seem like a good model for them, if it doesn't seem like it rings true and you know, it sits comfortably in their gut for their child, then it probably isn't the right thing.
And you know, in which case I can signpost you to maybe another service or somebody else that that might be able to to help you in a different way. If you don't feel that our approaches are marrying with your. Your sort of worldview on what you how you want to approach your child or what you think will work for your child
And before teachers or local or parents or a local educational authority, whoever bring that young person out Are you giving them a bit of a free? heads up training Explanation of we work in this way because blah are you okay with that before you even come here or?
Yeah, there's usually a preamble. So if it's, if it's a school or somebody commissioning a service, there's, there's often been quite a long run up to the young person actually coming. The family play dates are a little bit different because people self refer to us. So again, we send information and we have a sort of a, an email conversation prior to the young person coming. And then when they come for the first time, we show them around, talk through what we do. I go through it.
An overline of what a session might look like and then, you know, they, they, that either feels comfortable to them or it doesn't and that's okay if, if, if there's,
but they have time to take in the, the, the, the work before they arrive.
Yes. Yeah. So they've had, they've had that information at the beginning.
Okay. Now you also, this sounds very complex you also talked about not being married to a certain. Speaking of marriage and being married, you have another half and your other half, Lenny brings, is not a horse person, brings a lot to these sessions. Can you talk to us about, and she's not here to speak for herself, obviously, but can you talk to us about her, her role in this?
And then how you guys, work as a team this way, because I think for a lot of people listening, there's an assumption that let's say I, the listener, want to set up some sort of equine assisted thing. There's often in one's head an idea of this is me, the individual setting up this thing for these people.
However, I think as we all know the way human relationships work best because we're social apes is Through some sort of extended family tribe clan thing and at the center of that You know, even though I know you neither you nor Lenny look a day over 23 There has to be a sort of a tribal elder council. You know what I mean that and It seems to me that you and Lenny really do this. Lenny will kill me for saying she looks like an elder, but I'm speaking as an old soul. Right.
Talk us through that dynamic and, and how you guys work together and what. Expertise Lenny brings, and maybe we should actually have her in, you know, for her own interview, but without that luxury right now, talk us through this whole dynamic of how making momentum with you and Lenny works, because I've watched it at work, and it's intriguing to me.
So I think we have complimentary, but differing personality types and knowledge bases and the things that, you know, That we sort of mesh together really nicely. So she has the same core set of values, but comes at it from a completely different perspective. So her practice is all around creativity, self expression, art making things. She was a ceramicist. Well, she is a ceramicist. So her degree is in ceramics and she was an art teacher.
So she's very focused on creating, producing something, making things. And the nature of that in the same way as they approach the horse is very experimental, because you have to be able to make errors.
You have to, you know, if you're producing a painting, like an oil painting or something, it's built in layers and there will be moments where you hate it and it looks awful and you've got to push through and adjust and, you know, in this, in this, with the ceramics, it's, it's a process that the material physically changes and, you know, things can go wrong and explode in the kiln and it's all about like, resilience and trusting the process.
So it's, it's very Although it's a completely different field, I think lots of the core values and underpinning thought processes are very similar. So that works nicely together and in the same, as I was saying before, I think children gravitate towards the adult that is providing the sort of energetic space or the approach or the personality type that they need in that moment. And I know that there are kids that come that are Lenny kids and there are kids that come that are.
My kids and there are kids that come, you know, that are drawn to another member of staff. We have great people that we work with. I have absolute joy with all the people we work with. They've got a cracking team and they all bring slightly different but complementary approaches, you know, so that might be the music. It might be sport.
It might be an interest in, you know, anime or, you know, a another thing, but there's, there's a suite of skill sets that everybody brings something and there will always be a child that is really interested in that thing.
Do you think that if to have a really effective equine assisted practice, you've actually got to have a number of people on the team who are not equine assisted, who are bringing other things in? Do you think it could work if everyone's just equine focused? Like give me your thoughts on that.
I think even if your team is equine focused, I mean the majority of our team is equine focused or have, you know, but, but they are, we are, none of us one thing. Nobody's a monolith. So, you know, as much as I eat, drink and breathe horses, there are other things that I am interested in, other things that I've pursued, other things in my background.
Like what?
Well, I was a scientist, you know, science. So I'm interested in the natural world. I'm interested in the environment and ecology and the space that we live in. And you know, the, the, that is interesting to me. I really love physics. I wasn't a physicist. I was a biologist, but I, I'm really interested in those spaces. And I think everybody comes to the table with more than one offering.
And it's just about Making sure that people have the opportunity to showcase their skills and talents and interests and knowledge.
You mentioned science. I happen to know that you are doing something rather interesting and scientific through Manchester Metropolitan University. Could you talk us through that?
Yes. So I was lucky enough to receive a Fulbright scholarship, PhD scholarship from White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership which is a collaboration of several Northern universities, hence the white rose. So there's University of Leeds, University of York, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester Metropolitan University, Sheffield Hallam University, and the University of Hull. So they have funding, pools of funding for open core PhDs.
So, with most PhDs, or it's more usual for PhDs that you apply to an existing project. Almost like a job role. So somebody will advertise the funding that they have, and you apply for that, and you get your PhD working on this larger project. These are open calls, so you submit the project you have designed, and it's your project that you've created. So they have different sort of streams, different areas of interest. So mine's their well well being health and communities pathway.
So, My PhD is looking at co designing outcome measures for equity assisted supports with autistic co researchers. So it's forefronting the experiences, the lived experiences, and the, wishes and needs and feelings of what is important for autistic people for them to decide the success criteria of an equestrian
support. Decoding what you just said in hub terms, that sounds an awful lot like letting autistic people tell therapists, equine assisted or otherwise, what works for them rather than being told what doesn't. Works for them.
Yeah. So that's
interesting. Talk to us in layman's terms about this.
So when you are providing any kind of service, you obviously have to demonstrate to funders or public bodies that you are. Doing something that is meaningful because people are you know, funding attendance somewhere along the line, so we have to measure outcomes for any type of support or intervention. But if you have your service users, if you co design your service with your service users, and your service users are dictating what they found meaningful.
impactful and meaningful from a service from their own perspective for their own benefit, they can dictate the success criteria. And that means that the whole service becomes neurodivergent affirming because you are measuring the things that are of importance to the autistic people that are attending and not what we neurotypical people may externally believe to be important to them. You're, you're, you're.
removing the assumption you're centering the lived experience as the the person is the expert.
It's the first time I've ever heard of anyone asking autistic people what they think. That's
not true. You asked Temple Grandin. Well, right.
Outside of me. And one of the things which I find fascinating about this PhD that you're doing is that you asked Rowan, you asked Scub, my son to come in and consult with you. On what his perception was, is, on equine assisted work, what works for him, what might not work so well for him and to help you with the study.
And what was so interesting when you did that was I was placed in quite a vulnerable position because there's Rowan who's grown up with the equine assisted model that basically, I designed in order to follow him on the recommendation first of Temple Grandin and then by what he showed me himself worked.
But it was very interesting to, to listen to him talk about effectively best practice, you know, and then to realize, oh my gosh, well, you talk about getting rid of ego, you know, know what one needs to do is, is hear him talk about what he'd like more of what he'd like less of. Because you know, that's going to inform the next generation coming up or best practice.
It's amazing that you're doing this within the equine assisted world, because As you know, equine assisted providers tend to be bossy, horsey people. And guilty at large, by the way, I'm holding my hand up here. I mean, horse people have to be de facto a little bit bossy in order to be able to handle a horse herd because horses themselves are a little bit bossy. And you know, I mean, it's, we're mirrors and it's kind of a little bit the culture.
So it's, it's a really interesting dance when you have to kind of give up your bossiness But at the same time, direct that bossiness over there to create, you know, safety and order and some structure, but at the same time, lose that bossiness completely in order to listen to the client group, the service users that now are informing you. And you talked about the death of the ego. You talked about the letting go of the ego. How's that working for you?
I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's a tough dance, right? I mean. It
is. And I've kind of gone through this. I have got to the place where. For the academic work, certainly, I am comfortable with discomfort and I have, I have gone through kind of, it's a reiterative process, I've gone through this over and over again and I kind of go through this like spiral of, do I, should I even be occupying a seat at this table? Really? Like, you know, am I, do, should I, as a neurotypical person even be completing this research at all?
And how do I. Balance the fact that the bulk of the benefit from the research comes to me because I have the scholarship, I have the living stipend, I get the academic qualification, but also the responsibility for the project rests with me because I've got to like actually manage it and produce it and deliver something at the same time. Really wanting to honor the fact that those. Voices with the lived experience.
My autistic co researchers are the experts in, you know, they are the authorities. They are the expert voice here and representing them and advocating from the, for them in academic spaces where they, when, when they're not there as well, because, you know, it's, it's fairly easy to do in the co research space where we're working together. But sometimes I have to go and quite vigorously defend their position to people that are like more senior than me.
You know, in a way that is quite challenging. And I think. Yeah, I, I don't think it's clean. It is a messy space. And I think the only way you can navigate that space is by being aware of that messiness and constantly really interrogating yourself and the way you're approaching things and your motivations and why you're doing things.
I did a piece of reading by he Epstein, who is an autistic autism researcher, and she, I read her PhD and she talked about the role of researchers really reflecting on their own kind of assumptions and biases and, and what they you know, bring to the table and really. Being aware of those things so that you can challenge them, but it isn't it's not straightforward at all
What what kind of resistance have you encountered from people more senior to yourself about? Letting people on the autism spectrum begin to consult govern dictate how therapeutic practice should go
It's not really resistance isn't the right word everybody's very Supportive and like committed to the process it's about Navigating the governance of research in a, in a field that is quite fluid. So when you're doing co design, the gold standard of co design is to have your service users contribute thoroughly, meaningfully, at every stage in the process. But that's. Practically quite difficult to do because you have to go through ethical clearances.
You have to have a degree of things cemented in order to get the gold stamp, you know, to the. The green light, if you like, to go through and do the research, which is right, because it's important that people who are potentially vulnerable are protected and, you know, all of the kind of legal things done in the correct way.
But those, I've sort of found that those things sit a little in contrast, and that has been, again, a tricky space to navigate, because I want to leave as much opportunity and as much openness and as much fluidity so that Co researchers can dictate what is happening, but also allowing the governance things to happen in a way that makes the projects meaningful and appropriate and safe for everybody.
What are the, what are the autistic co designers telling you? What are the main takeaways you're getting at this stage in the study?
So the, the things that they identified as being kind of, meaningful to them were not the things that are generally measured in the scientific literature and in research. They were more based around wellbeing and that's not something that is generally used as an outcome measure,
but other counterintuitive of wellbeing, very personal, subjective, each one to the other, or is there a pattern that you can discern across all,
Too soon to say, I would say so that the way that the research works is that there is There was a series of focus groups with my co researchers, whereby we looked at their experience and the things that they felt were important, we sort of talked together about and fed back on each other's ideas and kind of picked out key themes. That was the first phase of the research. The second phase of the research is to take that to a wider audience and see if there's agreement and what.
Where the priorities lie in a larger population. So come back this time next year and I'll be able to tell you.
Give us a little bit of some trends. If you're a practitioner, what have you learned since the beginning of your study that you could say has positively affected your own practice?
I think recognizing that there is, it's a an ebb and flow between the person who is coming, the person who is providing, and the horse. And I think that movement between the three sort of agencies that are involved in the session is really, really meaningful. And I think watching watching somebody work with a horse, is revealing for the service user as well as it is for the service provider.
So in the same way that somebody in a traditional model might be watching how people interact with the horse to gauge their kind of emotional state, I think that is happening the other way as well.
And I think you can tell a lot by a person by how they interact with animals and how they manage challenge and whether or not they get stressed or, you know, if they're authentic, if they're If the what they're saying matches up with how they're presenting, that HOST is a great diagnostic tools and I think that works the other way as it does for the the practitioner watching the client. I think it also works for the client watching the practitioner too.
Are we talking about the importance of being able to recognize symbiosis and what symbiosis is and all the nuances around symbiosis? Because you're talking about
Yeah, I think so. That's tough. It's a tough thing to answer I think we have to be careful When you're drawing generalizations to do it in such a way that doesn't make everybody a monolith because every type of like a question assisted support comes from a slightly different place has a slightly different background. Each practitioner is a different person. Each horse is a different being. Each client has a different set of needs and desires.
And it's about how do we tease out the things that are. uniform across practice and uniform across a service user group in a way that doesn't diminish or dehumanize or make things too much of a generality. Because you know there is commonality, but there are also a lot of differences and we need to kind of, agree as you know a practitioner community about what we are providing for our service users And what the service users feel is important for them.
You're at the cutting edge of moving stuff forward to the next phase because I think where you differ from me is that I'm a practitioner, you know, and I'm a, I'm a comer up wither of the world. methodology perhaps, but you're a measurer. You're also a practitioner. You're also innovative. You're also running everything, but you're also measuring. So when you measure, you allow the growth of the field because people have something against which they can measure. Do you see what I'm saying?
And so it's very, very necessary work. I think, every single person who's listening to this podcast who's got an Equine Assisted thing is, is waiting to hear, what can I do to make what I do better?
By engaging your service users in such a way as they co design your service. So if you are co designing. is the gold standard for patient care in medical fields. It's expected if you're doing any kind of medical research that, or, you know, any kind of designing of delivery of service that you do recruit and engage your service users, because they are, you know, the people who need to be able to engage with the model, whatever it happens to be.
So ask, ask the people you're working with what they want to get out of this experience. And keep checking in, seek out the mentorship of people who have been through similar projects, programs, what they found useful, what they didn't like, speak to them. So always go back to that perspective because anything any service in order to be meaningful has to produce a change in the service user. It has to, be impactful in that person's life in a productive way.
So if you go back and speak to those people and, you know, really embrace their input into every aspect of your service. So if you're going to send out paperwork for somebody who is autistic or has a learning difficulty or you know, some kind of cognitive difference, have source people who have those needs and ask them to proofread your intake sheets. Ask them to look at your website, ask people with dyslexia if they can read the font on your website.
Like engage, engage your service users and that is the route to meaningful provision.
Get mentorship from the very people that you provide service for.
Yes. Yeah, make no assumptions.
That makes perfect sense to me. What's interesting is that that's not the norm, but I do think that with studies like yours it can help to become the norm because there are lots of very, very good practitioners out there who are doing exactly what you just said. And at the same time, perhaps they're facing some opposition on this, whether it's societal, whether it's academic, whether it's authoritative, you know, local. authority saying, you know, no, it's got to be a top down thing.
And also one has to be able to dance the dance where you can talk in a way that makes it sound like it's sufficiently top down that they'll fund you because that's still Often want to hear. In particularly, you know, I know this is true in the U. S. for example. While at the same time, absolutely doing what you're, you're saying to do, which leads me to the next thing. You are now an authority on this Alex. And how can people come and learn from you?
If I had been starting out now, and I was listening to this podcast, I think, Shit, you know, I, I, I want to learn from this Alex person. I want this Alex person to show me how to set up my thing. I want to consult with her. I want to learn from her. I want to be trained by her. I want to be mentored by her. Are you offering that? can people contact you? How would that work? Do you train? What, what do you do?
Yeah, very, very happy to keep the conversation going. So yeah, people are very welcome to contact me. Contact me and, and, you know, or come and we deliver training. So, obviously, we do the movement method and the horseboy method and the TI provision training I deliver training in schools. But, you know, if you have specific questions, you're very welcome to, I will always do my best to answer them. Or if I can't answer them, I can usually.
Direct you to somebody who can but I think that, you know, this is obviously international finding, finding a mentor for you, who is familiar with how things work in your country of delivery or your state of delivery is also really important because there are nuances and differences to do with you know, policy and geographical location and all of those types of things.
So, you know, some things are general and applicable anywhere, but some things you need specific local understanding and knowledge as well.
Where do you want to see your practice go in the foreseeable? Let's go five years, 10 years. And where do you want to see the field go?
I think I, anybody who is in this space. can see that there is kind of a collective understanding of the fact that we need to, as a, a field produce some clarity of understanding about what it is that everybody offers. So, you know, I, I don't describe what we offer as an equine therapy because I am not a therapist. And, you know, I think it's right and important that we're clear on our language and create a clear set of shared understanding. Right, and
something could be therapeutic without being a therapy.
Being a therapy. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, having that, but making sure that people understand that and having that shared understanding about what it is that we are able to deliver, what it is that we are providing and what they can expect from us.
And I think that is something that I see reflected within the field the larger field and kind of an increasing formalization of what is equine assisted therapy, what is equine facilitated learning, what are the sort of qualities qualifications and you know, methodologies behind those services, but I think there should also be a space for there is so much good work happening from so many different kind of approaches. So many different backgrounds.
So many different, methodologies, I think, finding a way where we can formalize stuff without stifling that creativity and without that, without removing people's capacity to have innovation and be unique, I think is really important. Because there are, there is such huge diverse needs for so many different reasons that it is right and proper that services don't all do the same thing. Because. What people find from each individual service is, is different.
What people take from each individual service is different. And if we over formalize and make it formulaic, I think some of that, that is lost.
Do you think that every equine assisted place, gig, practice should do a number of methodologies? Not just, not just horseplay or regala or Do you think there should, as much as possible, be a cross fertilization?
I think we should develop uniformity in terms of the, there needs to be some things that we're all doing with regards to safeguarding health and safety, you know, that, that making sure that clients are comfortable and safe within a space and, and meeting those needs. I think there's also things that we should all be doing around animal equine welfare and well being and honoring horses as our partners in this endeavor that are really, really important.
But I think that Everybody who comes into these fields comes with their own passion and purpose, and it's important that they sense that and honor that because those are the things that they do really well. And that is what gives longevity and spark to your provision.
So if you are super, super passionate about one modality, or if you are super passionate about groundwork, or, you know, observing the horses in a natural space, or, producing, you know, doing written work, mounted work, whatever it is, everybody's got, you know, liberty training, whatever it is that you're doing should be the thing that feeds your soul as well, because that's what allows you to provide service for others.
Most young people that might need to access your service. A service like yours don't live where you are. They don't live in the country. They don't have access to horses, animals, nature in your perfect world. How do you begin to answer that need? You're not far from Manchester, but Manchester is a big amorphous, scary conurbation with areas that. people, they're not going to see horses in nature and stuff. And those are probably where the young people are with the greatest need.
In your perfect world, how would you have those people, those young people from those places, access services like yours? I
think it's about dissemination of knowledge. So, I think there is definitely an understanding that there is need. There is definitely a awareness that we need to meet need, Then schools and practitioners maybe don't know where to go with that, don't know how to address it.
So I think making training sort of more widely available so that some of these approaches and techniques can be applied in more mainstream or urban settings, bringing that ethos into those places, I think would be really useful. Does that mean putting
your horses in a trailer and taking them into a school? Or does that mean training people in those schools to have nature? and interaction with nature, even in within a classroom or so like, what does that mean?
I think the latter. So, you know, as much as it is lovely to be able to drop in and provide that experience. And I think that is very meaningful. The, the thing that has the biggest impact is the small day to day changes.
So if, if everybody could introduce some aspects of allowing for regulatory movement and removing negative sensory triggers and loading up positive sensitive triggers into their spaces, those small the cumulative effect of those many small changes would be absolutely enormous for so many young people.
Well, every young person that moves through that space and I think that is the The most meaningful thing we could do at this time is to share that knowledge and furnish people from outside of this field with those tools and that skill set.
That sounds like basically bringing nature into schools. Why is nature so important?
So it is the environment we are evolved to be in we weren't evolved to be in concrete cubes with artificial lighting and you know, the the more in front
of a computer actually, I think I was born
Yeah, the more the more that you can allow young people and not just young people, staff as well. You know, the more time you can spend in an environment that meets your sensory needs and allows for regulation, the better you will do. The more accessible learning is, the more you are in that you know, calm regulated learning space that allows you to accumulate knowledge or memory. Access executive functioning and emotional regulation and all of that.
All of those things that we need in order to be not only successful academic learners, but you know, human beings.
We're organisms. We're designed for planet Earth. And a lot of the time we're living in some artificialized version of planet Earth, which causes us stress and makes our brains go squiffy. Got it. Here's my final question. You've got a parent, you've got a teacher, and they brought their young person or people out to your place. And now you're going to send them home or back to the classroom with some tips on how to keep going the good things that they find it yours at theirs.
Break me down like three, five, whatever, what would be the things that you would say? If you do these things, you're going to continue to see positive outcomes. And if you don't do them, you kind of won't.
I think keeping in mind the shared endeavor, the purpose of what you're doing. So the purpose of what we're doing within the education system is allowing people, young people to go on to the next step successfully. Now, while the acquisition of academic success is important to that, if it comes at the cost of the individual's well being and functioning capacity, it doesn't matter how many A levels you've got if you can't, if you've become so shut down that you're unable to leave your home.
Like that, that becomes a meaningless pursuit. So I think shifting the focus back onto the purpose of education, which is producing. you know, a functioning, well adjusted, comfortable, happy member of society. That's, that's what you're there for. And, and recognizing that that can look like a lot of different things. So allowing for individual passions and strengths and approaches to working and problem solving and all of those things to be equally respected and regarded is really important.
That problem solving thing sounds like BDNF to me, which is, yeah, brain derived neurotrophic factor. Yeah, neuroplasticity.
Yeah,
right neuroplasticity So the parent goes away and you say do these three things and you'll get neuroplasticity in your house
What
are they?
Move movement. So allow for everything to be experiential hands on real world learning. You can deliver any academic content through experiential hands on real world learning. If you want them to learn about pivots, moments, build a trebuchet. And while you're doing that, you can talk about concentric castles and sieges. So you can do history and physics in one go. And also think, reflect back onto the stuff that was meaningful for you as a learner.
If you really think about it, and stuff that stuck, and what inspired passion in you, whatever those passions were, what did that look like for you, and, and how can you reproduce those experiences for your child or the young people you work with?
I'm going to play devil's advocate. I can't even think about that Alex, because my kid's just going nuts at home, and I just want to medicate him because it'll make life easier for me. And they're just exploding all over the house, wrecking the furniture. What do I do?
I think medication is really important for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I think that it can be really life changing, but it shouldn't be your first port of call and it certainly shouldn't be the only solution to somebody's struggles. So, if you, if your child But what am I going
to do then? Kids going, bananas and nuts, what am I, what am I going to do?
Get them outside.
So the parent says, I can't go outside. I don't want to go outside for bazillion reasons. I'm in lockdown and the kid's going crazy. And what can I do?
At that point, the child is communicating a need and their primary need in that moment is sensory input. So if your child is It's going wild. You need to meet that demand. You need to meet that sensory need in whatever way that child is asking for. So that might be that you provide movement opportunities like trampolines or indoor swings or peanut balls or climbing
frame from the wall or something.
All of those types of things. So in that moment, in that headspace the primary need is connection of the brain and body. So you have to meet that need first before you can do anything else. At that point, the child is not open to rationalization or a conversation or a punishment or reward or anything. They're completely driven by that sensory input need. So meet that first. and then everything else comes second.
So let them move, let them move, figure out ways to let them move.
Yes. And then that, that buildup of energy tension will dissipate and then you will have the BDNF and the brain space that allows the, the access to the other, you know, rational parts of the brain. And if you try and approach that first you will struggle. Because even if the child really wants to comply and sit still and take it in, they'll only be concentrating on sitting still. They won't actually be receiving whatever information it is that you're trying to give them.
Need to be able to re regulate it in a regulated space first. So move, move, move, move.
Move, move, move. Love it. Okay, Alex, thank you so much for coming on Equine Assisted World. Before we go, Please tell people how they can reach you, websites, emails, etc.
Okay, so you can use our work email, which is makingmomentumatoutlook. com makingmomentumatoutlook. com And yeah, feel free to contact us through that or through, if you search for makingmomentum. com Cheshire, you will find our Facebook and Instagram social media pages. You can Making
momentum Cheshire.
Yes. If you search that, it'll come up and you'll see you'll, you'll see where we are.
Listen, Alex, thank you so much for coming on. You're a master of the arts. It's an honor to have you on.
Well, thank you very much for having me..
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