The Equine Experiential Education Association (E3A) conducted its first training event on Saturday at the First Nature Ranch east of St. Cloud. The Demo Day brought people from across Central Florida and other locations to learn how E3A training and certification can apply to professionals working in counseling, therapy, and team/leadership development through guided, group-based interactions with horses.
Five First Nature Foundation staff members, including Director Kerul Kassel, began E3A’s full certification program earlier this month, and the ranch will be hosting a five-day Certification Capstone later this year. E3A instructors Isabella “Boo” Martin and Pam Hunter traveled to St. Cloud from the northeast U.S. to conduct the program.
Saturday’s participants learned the concept of “12-legged collaboration,” where one of First Nature’s rescue therapy horses, a learner, and an experienced horse handler work through a variety of exercises. Participants range in experience from individuals already using horses in therapy programs to those with no prior experience with horses, so safety was continuously emphasized. The humans guide the horse to navigate obstacles and perform turns. The exercises become progressively more difficult when repeated without using voice commands, and then again without any physical contact, with the learner taking on more responsibility for achieving the team’s goals. The participants then formed a group of teams for more complex group exercises.
After completion of the exercises, participants adjourned to the classroom to do a debrief using E3A’s “DIPIT” model, which stands for Discover, Investigate, Parallel, Interpret, and Transfer. Basically, the model translates and applies what occurred inside the horse arena to the particular training goals of the larger program, for example, how the complexity of the group exercises demonstrates the challenges in corporate communication.
“I plan to use equine education as part of executive training in Costa Rica and Panama,” said Guisella Solano, who came over from West Melbourne for the demonstration.
Mary Wynne, who lives close to the First Nature Ranch in Bay Lake, is a speech therapist.
“I was initially thinking of using this in connection with that therapy, but now I see many other opportunities to use horses in different settings,” said Wynne.
Next Saturday, First Nature is hosting a Horse Fair Day for participants from the Horses and Humans Research Foundation, who are holding their annual conference in Kissimmee.
Earlier this year, First Nature hosted The Education Foundation of Osceola County for their second Horseplay for Leaders program at the ranch, and will be hosting a nonprofit roundtable on Monday, March 30.
The still rural, peaceful, and tranquil setting of the First Nature Ranch’s location on Old Melbourne Highway is ideal for conducting equine therapy programs. However, Foundation Director Kassel is concerned about the noise impact of the planned construction of the County’s Sunbridge Parkway Extension and connection to the Sunbridge Parkway toll road that will connect to S.R. 417 in Orange County, both in the immediate vicinity also a concern to residents of the Bay Lake community.
For more information on the First Nature Foundation, see https://bit.ly/46kklIv.
For more information on the Equine Experiential Education Association, see https://bit.ly/4kPD7x9.
For more information on the Horses & Humans Research Foundation, see https://bit.ly/4tUWrgW.
