Equine Facilitated Learning Equine-facilitated activities consist of work and relational development between participant(s), equine facilitated activities practitioner, and equines (horses). With equine-facilitated activities, the aim is to develop your communication and relationship building skills through interacting with horses on the ground. Equine-facilitated activities emphasize working in partnership with the participants in order to raise awareness of the way they experience the world around them. As a HERD Institute Certified professional, Kat Ludewig works within the highest level of professional and ethical standards, ensuring a safe environment for learning.
Benefits of EFL
- Promotes confidence and expertise needed to excel in a workplace environment
- Increases creative thinking and critical thinking
- Helps decision-making and problem-solving
- Improves communication and interpersonal skills
- Develops self-awareness and empathy
- Gain skills for coping with emotions and high stress situations
EFL sessions can be individual or group sessions. Each session involves a horse interaction facilitated by the professional or professional team. Though there is always a lesson plan, a good facilitator will often follow the horse’s lead. Often the activities are problem solving based, relationship building or focused on critical thinking skills. Though students can learn horsemanship skills through the sessions, it is usually not the primary goal. Most goals are focused on the development of life skills. Lessons are often groundwork or focused on relationships but could be mounted if it helps the client to meet specific goals.
Carrots and Coffee
Meet the horses, tour the facility, and learn about how the different programs here at Blazing Star Stables can help.
EFL, Horsemanship, School Groups, Coorperate, and more can all have a tailored experience here.
This monthly event is open to the general public, and we encourage the following:
Therapists • Community Leaders • School Personnel • Parents • Potential Donors
Business people interested in energizing your teams!
PLEASE NOTE: This event is not for feeding the horses, as their diets are strictly regimented for their health and safety.
Thank you for your understanding.
DATES: Check the Facebook Page for the specific event date and time.
School Groups
This program incorporates horses experientially for educational and emotional growth and learning. EFL uses unique approaches to create positive and constructive learning experiences for children and adolescents who are at risk of failing in the traditional academic setting. EFL sessions incorporate guided and safe horse interactions, positive interaction between students, animals and adults, as well as the incorporation of grade-level appropriate reading, writing, art and math skills.
These approaches, combined with a varied and very specialized teaching staff helps to reengage the typically disengaged or defiant student and recreate a positive learning experience that carries over into the students’ traditional classroom experiences.
EFL For Organizations
In today’s world, leaders and organizations face multiple challenges and can no longer rely upon traditional formulas to be successful. Our interactive experiential communication and team development program is designed to strengthen the social and emotional intelligence needed for leaders and team members to be more effective, self-aware, and accountable.
Unlike other experiential programs, such as ropes courses and survival adventures, we provide opportunities that go beyond overcoming fear and bonding under stress to engage participants in deep levels of awareness and communication to create lasting results thru the partnership with horses.
Healing Time
A support group for all impacted by illness, including those who have recently received a diagnosis, those who are undergoing treatment, and those who consider themselves survivors.
Regardless of where you may be in the process, Ilness changes a life. Sharing experiences with others who understand, finding a community with the herd, and connecting with each other helps to process those changes.
Through our six weeks together, the horses offer their presence, care, and sensitivity, as well as a chance to create a healing and authentic relationship, as we support each other on our journey to wholeness.
Connecting Through Greif
Connecting Through Grief is a 6-week program that offers support for those who are experiencing grief due to loss. We will spend time exploring the nature of grief through connection, mindfulness, discussion, and observation. Horses offer a non-judgmental, grounded, and authentic presence. They can help us to hold all that is going on within ourselves. Show up just as you are and find support within our herd—both human and equine. This group is recommended for adults 18+ and those who are six months out from their loss.
Group size limited to 10
Veterans
Many veterans have spent most of their adult lives immersed in the military culture and require support in their transition to civilian life. Equine-assisted learning is an experiential treatment that can provide social and vocational transitional skill building for the military veteran population, especially for those who acquired a disability in the service.
Horses can help heal without judgment. A horse reacts with no agenda and instead responds to what the veteran is doing, feeling, and thinking in that moment. What the participant has done in the past is not reflected in the horse’s reaction to his or her actions in the present, which can help the individual formulate new ways of engaging with others (Strozzi, 2004). A horse’s reaction to a person tells that person how they are being perceived in the moment. The horse’s feedback is more easily accepted and discussed than feedback from another person due to the horse’s judgment-free nature (Rector, 2005; Roberts, 2001; Selby & Smith-Osborne, 2013; Strozzi, 2004).
Contact for times