Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Ep 17: Alex Northover - Making Momentum

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Ep 17: Alex Northover - Making Momentum · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
• 0:03
  New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
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  Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
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  You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
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  Here on Equine Assisted World.
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  We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and,
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  established in the equine assisted field.
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  This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be
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  physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have.
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  These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
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  Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show
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  Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
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  We are, as always, talking to people who are at the cutting edge of this
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  extraordinary field that has grown so much in the last 5 10 years from something
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  on the hippie fringes to something that's now coming into the mainstream.
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  And we have Alex Northover.
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  Alex Northover.
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  Works out of Cheshire in the UK and treads the line between equine assisted
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  stuff, mounted stuff non mounted stuff, working in schools, working with the
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  nervous system, working with the brain.
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  Bringing a PhD to the table with this has been doing this for many years,
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  like many of us have and is only just beginning to pop up and be recognized
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  because she's been a bit busy like many people have until this point.
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  So if you want to, if you're interested, if you're someone listening to this and
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  you're interested in how to really look at the holistic picture the human brain,
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  the human nervous system, autism, physical disabilities, ADHD, trauma, working
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  off the horse, working on the horse, working with nature, working with nature.
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  the highest level of classical riding working without the horse at all working
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  with the goat working with the chicken and getting school refusers Through
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  their exams In a trailer in a farm And sending them off to university,
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  you have arrived at the right place, you have arrived at Alex Northover.
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  And Making Momentum, which is her project in in Cheshire in England,
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  and we also will need to talk a little bit about her wife Lenny.
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  Who also is a genius with nervous system stuff away from the horse
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  and why that sort of combo makes for such a perfect service.
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  If you are coming in as a service user, as a client with any of these kinds of needs.
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  So Alex, welcome to Equine Assisted World.
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  Tell us who you are and what you do.
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  Alex Northover: Hi, thank you for having me.
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  So, yeah, I'm Alex Northover.
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  I'm one of the directors at Making Momentum CIC.
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  So we're a community interest company, and we provide alternative
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  provision term time in the week for a variety of schools and several LEAs.
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  We're located in Cheshire just outside of Holmes Chapel.
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  We're in a really good accessible area.
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  position.
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  So we work with Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester.
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  We've had children from Manchester, Trafford several of the LEAs.
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  We're right on the border.
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  So, we have a lot of people coming from a lot of different directions to us.
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  And we also run family play dates at the weekend, utilize the horse boy method.
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  Yeah, that's us.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Not everyone listening to this knows the English terminology.
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  What's an LEA?
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  Take us through all these acronyms you just brought us through.
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  Alex Northover: Through at you.
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  So, we're a CIC, which is a community interest company.
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  So that is a a, a not for profit.
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  It runs similar to a limited company.
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  But it's somewhere between a limited company and a charity.
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  So we don't have full charitable status.
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  We don't have Governors, the way a charity does a governance board the kind
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  of logistics of managing is a little bit easier because it manages more like a
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  limited company, but you are committed to reinvesting your funds into the
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  services of the community in some respect.
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  So, that's the CIC.
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  LEA is the local educational authority.
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  So, in the UK local boroughs are responsible for managing the education
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  of the young people that live in their locale, and they run the
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  state maintained schools, and ensure adequate provision for everybody.
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  And part of that is finding, sourcing and funding alternative provision for children
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  who, for whatever reason, are struggling to manage the setting that is their name
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  setting, their name school, or don't have an appropriate setting currently.
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  So we provide educational services for those young people.
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  Rupert Isaacson: So you really, An educational establishment.
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  Most people, when they think about equine assisted stuff, they're not thinking
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  about getting kids through exams.
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  They're not thinking about someone who is finding it difficult to go to
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  school, wants to go on to university needs help with this academically, as
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  well as, you know, just feeling better.
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  It's not going to occur to many people who want to get into the equine assisted
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  field, that it's even a possibility.
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  To become an educational resource to this degree.
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  How did you get into this?
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  How did, how did this, how did this work?
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  Alex Northover: Well, that was my background originally.
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  So I am a qualified teacher.
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  So it's Lenny, my wife we both have QTS qualified teacher status.
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  So I spent the first part of my working life as a science teacher
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  initially in mainstream education.
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  And then in the sector that is for young people who have not
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  managed mainstream education.
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  So it's what we call pupil referral units.
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  So there's young people who have.
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  been excluded or removed from their original settings
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  for a variety of reasons.
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  So I came from an educational background and so did Lenny.
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  She was an art teacher and the head of a very successful school
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  in Trafford for a long time.
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  So I think for me, it, it was a very natural marriage for
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  what I was doing previously and adding in the movement method.
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  And the approach is that I learned from you into.
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  Into that provision came very naturally and before I was running making momentum I
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  was using movement method in the classroom in the pupil referral unit, but the young
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  people I was working with there as well
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  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, you have this background in education You know how to
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  mix Nervous system stuff and brain stuff ie therapeutic stuff with academics.
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  That's something you're trained in.
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  It's something you're good at How does the horse come into this?
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  How do you how do you how do you help people with that?
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  Alex Northover: It depends really, because being child led, it
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  depends really on the needs of the person that you're working with.
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  So, obviously, you have the horses, as I know, because I listen to these podcasts,
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  we've already had these discussions before about regulating the nervous
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  system and how the horse helps to do that.
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  So, we use the horses within the day, both as a regulatory tool, so everybody rides.
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  if they want to at some point during the day, they always
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  spend some time with the horses.
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  That might be sensory work, it might be grooming, it might be
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  groundwork, but we also use the horses from an academic perspective.
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  So anything that we are learning, we can learn from horseback or
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  to do with the horse as well.
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  So the like nutrition, we apply to the horses physics, we apply to the horses,
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  mathematics, we apply to the horses.
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  So they're learning in the saddle as well as Getting the regulatory
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  boost of being around the horses.
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  There's the academic learning happening at the same time.
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  And we also follow the movement method principles.
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  So whatever any child is interested in, we include those things.
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  So we have a music therapist who comes in and delivers a couple of hours a week.
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  We work with her.
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  One of our young people is really interested in French at the moment.
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  So we're working around.
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  Learning some more modern foreign languages and yeah, we just do everything
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  based around their interests and their passions and their personal drives.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Can you give us a couple of examples of if you're trying to teach a
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  math concept or if you're trying to teach a French concept or a physics concept
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  or perhaps all three at the same time?
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  How are you going to, how are you doing that with the horse?
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  Just give us a scenario.
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  Alex Northover: Okay, so that like this things like calculations of
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  distance, speed and time that we do during the crazy time activities.
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  So, we set up jumping lanes or lunging the horses or moving between the poles.
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  We set up stopwatches, we time them, we do the mathematics in that way.
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  We can also do things based around treasure hunts.
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  So if we're looking for say vocab for French.
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  So the young man who's interested in French at the moment is also interested
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  in Pokemon, so we've got, a French Pokemon book, and we've been doing
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  Rupert Isaacson: Frenchman,
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  Alex Northover: Frenchman, we've been , we've been learning Pokemon
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  acquiring , we've been acquiring vocab, like, you know, as, as he
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  moves through the space doing that.
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  So each individual.
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  Lesson or activity or concept, we're always trying to think about how
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  we could embed movement in it and how we could adapt it so that it's
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  as engaging as possible and as kind of, much opportunity for movement
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  and regulation as possible as well.
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  Rupert Isaacson: So when I visited you back in August we were.
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  I called it a trailer because of the American audience, but
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  in English we call it a caravan.
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  Flora,
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  Alex Northover: flora caravan, yes.
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  Rupert Isaacson: And for the Americans who are listening, you think trailer,
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  you think that's huge, big thing.
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  No, no, no.
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  An English caravan is much more modest.
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  It's, it's, it's, it's cozy.
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  It's a, it's, it's a small thing.
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  And English caravaning is a, it's a culture.
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  And so you have this.
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  Lovely little caravan on your property while we were looking
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  through your your place.
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  You said oh, yes at that table in that caravan We've had a
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  couple of school refusers sitting their GSEs at that caravan.
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  And for those listeners who don't know what a GCSE is, that's the
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  exams that you do that decide whether you're going to go to college or not.
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  They don't get you into a college, but they decide whether you are
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  college material or not in the UK.
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  Yes,
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  Alex Northover: it's the, it's the post secondary.
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  So, age 16, it's the formal national exams that everybody sits.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
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  So you've got a school refuser.
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  Your job is to get them into college.
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  How do you go from?
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  I'm not going to school.
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  I don't want to learn anything I don't even want to come out of my room
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  and maybe I mean, you know indulging in some other self destructive behaviors
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  to coming to you working through the horse and being Other movement based
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  things and nature basis and then ending up actually able to sit in that
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  Caravan and sit an exam that gets them into college Can you talk us through
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  like the one two, three four of that
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  Alex Northover: so it's about breaking down the barriers so the
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  It used to be termed school refusal.
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  It's normally referred to now as emotionally based school non attendance.
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  So EBSNA or emotionally based school avoidance.
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  Yeah.
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  So I think I think that while language isn't everything, I think it is
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  important to recognize that what presents as a refusal to attend is
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  actually Broadly a trauma response.
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  Very true, well put.
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  So, saying that they are refusing indicates choice.
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  Young people are, when it becomes that extreme and that embedded feel that unsafe
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  and feel unable to, it's an impossibility for them to manage the school environment
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  that is their named educational setting.
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  I have yet to meet a young person who doesn't want to be
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  successful, doesn't want to do well.
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  That can look like different things for different people, but they
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  all have ambitions and dreams.
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  Desires and, you know, the wish and the will to do something.
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  It's just about setting them up in an environment where those
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  things are accessible for them.
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  So I think the first thing.
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  Is that we look nothing like those spaces that have been historically
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  traumatic for that young person and we come with the, the expectation is, how
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  do we work collaboratively together to make whatever your ambitions and
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  your aspirations are achievable for you and what does that look like.
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  And the first thing is always.
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  Coming down out of that space of anxiety, trauma, autistic burnout.
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  So the, the, the primary thing is always the relationship connection and the
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  opportunity for regulation and getting back into a space where your cortisol is
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  low, your oxytocin is up and you feel calm and able and ready and regulated so that
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  you can access education in some form.
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  And then from there, it's all hinged onto interests and what the young person what
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  their particular ambitions are and how do we sequentially set them up for success.
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  So if it's, I'd really like to work in X field, we go and look
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  what the equivalent college courses are, what the entry requirements
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  are for those college courses.
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  And then we talk about how we can get you to the place where
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  those things are achievable.
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  And because it's collaborative and we're working together
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  and it's all focused around.
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  things that they feel are meaningful, the barriers fall away and they
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  can actually attend and access and access the work and, and do well.
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  So we have children coming with zero attendance to sort of You know,
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  low 30 percent attendance that are on 100 percent attendance with us.
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  And we have a hundred percent success rate with post 16 transitions and sitting
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  those external exams in some format.
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  Some of them are not GCSEs.
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  Some of them are functional skills or other types of qualifications,
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  but everybody manages to attain something and move on to somewhere.
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  Rupert Isaacson: I mean, this is incredibly impressive.
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  Again, can you just talk us through some scenarios?
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  How does the.
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  the horse help with this?
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  Most people wouldn't be able to see a horse bringing you into an exam space.
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  Alex Northover: Well, for example, when we've had young people coming to do
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  formal qualifications, we might set up the day so they can have some time with
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  the horses first, so they can move into that space as regulated as possible.
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  We work really closely with the LEA and with schools, and we have great support
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  with the schools that we work with.
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  We've got and, you know, we make sure that exam entry access arrangements
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  are such that if people require breaks, they're able to take them.
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  If they require a scribe, they're able to have them you know, whatever
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  they need in order to make that experience accessible, they get.
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  And because we're in a space that is.
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  You know, very rich in those positive sensory triggers and
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  free from the negative ones.
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  Again, it releases that pressure from the young person.
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  They're able to focus on the exam as the difficult thing, not managing the
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  environment as the difficult thing.
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  Rupert Isaacson: I'm wondering, just in my head as you were talking,
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  I'm imagining somebody sitting in exam while they're on a horse.
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  Alex Northover: Well, this year, actually, they've just changed the exam access now.
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  So for the first time, the next cohort going through will
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  be able to listen to music.
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  I'm not sure how that's going to be managed yet because I haven't
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  looked at the the regulations yet.
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  But there is an understanding, I think, that there are things that make are
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  helpful and we should be providing people with the opportunity to succeed with those
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  things, but helpful, whereas previously you wouldn't have been able to do that.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
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  I'm thinking about, I'm sure you're thinking about the exam halls that
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  we sat in you know, and it wasn't a caravan in a lovely farmyard with
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  the ducks outside the window, you
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  know, let alone listening to music.
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  And I'm just wondering if the next step is like, okay, you know, here you are
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  on the horse, here's a, here's a, you know, we're going to have like a movable
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  desk on the saddle in front of you
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  Alex Northover: and
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  Rupert Isaacson: we'll keep the horse moving for your oxytocin and have at it.
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  Alex Northover: It would be nice, wouldn't it?
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  It would be nice.
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  Rupert Isaacson: You know, the way, but the way you describe it,
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  it actually sounds not outside the bounds of possibility.
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  And one can often be so pessimistic about where education is going
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  or, you know, the kids getting medicated and so on and so on.
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  But yet.
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  At the same time, there's places like Making Momentum, with you, that are
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  the exact opposite of that, which are coming in with movement, nature,
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  horses, and so on, and getting those same kids Who perhaps otherwise might
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  be put on medications or whatever or marked out as no hopers getting them
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  through their actual exams, which is still the measure by which our society
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  Judges, you know, whether you're successful or failing, you know failing
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  in Education so just listening to you talk through that Makes me much more
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  hopeful than I have been of late.
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  So good.
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  Alex Northover: I'm glad I'm glad I have inspired some hope.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, go ahead.
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  And I'm going to ask you my next question.
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  Alex Northover: I was just gonna say, I think that that, yeah, I think everybody
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  there, there are Working in education is a really difficult way to earn money,
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  and I don't think there's anybody there who doesn't profoundly believe and want
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  to support young people to succeed and believe in their capacity to succeed.
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  It's just knowledge sometimes, or I think confidence to try things
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  that are a little bit left field or a little bit outside of the box.
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  And you know, there's not a lot of, you know, that space for innovation, there's
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  not a lot of space because everybody is so pressed for time and so overloaded.
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  And, you know, I think if you're doing something that is slightly
• 18:49
  different from everybody else, it can feel quite vulnerable.
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  But I think everybody that's there on the ground definitely has the passion
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  and the drive to want to do that and support young people, you wouldn't,
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  you wouldn't go and work in a school if you didn't have that, because there's
• 19:04
  much easier ways to generate income.
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  You've got to be there because you love it.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Without a doubt, you're right.
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  However, at the same time, you know, one hears a lot of people
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  who are working within that system saying, look, I'm burned out.
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  I'm ground down.
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  I'm, you know,
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  Alex Northover: I think it breaks adults the same way it breaks children.
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  Rupert Isaacson: So before, before I move on to my next sort of official
• 19:28
  podcast questions, do Do you think do you think things like your, your
• 19:32
  project making momentum, are you going to be an anomaly as the future unfolds?
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  Or do you think places like yours will be more and more the norm?
• 19:45
  Alex Northover: I think the ethos and the values that underpin it
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  will be more and more the norm.
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  I think that spaces like us will exist for the children who have the biggest
• 19:57
  challenges and find school environments, environments the most difficult.
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  I don't think typical school will ever look like what we offer, but I think there
• 20:06
  are elements of what we offer that, that will and should be in typical schools.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Are you seeing, I'm getting further and further away from my
• 20:15
  question this year, but it's, I can't, I can't go, not go down this rabbit hole.
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  Do you think that, have you, are you, are you seeing any evidence of that?
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  Are you, are you seeing schools beginning in, at least in your
• 20:28
  area, beginning to implement?
• 20:30
  Stuff that you are Yeah,
• 20:31
  Alex Northover: I see, I see people being invited into run
• 20:35
  meditation workshops to us locally.
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  I see people, schools starting to do more and more from like
• 20:41
  a forest school perspective.
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  There's a very excellent independent, small, independent school down the road
• 20:48
  from us who has just won an award and then their practice is very like our practice.
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  I see.
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  There's definitely a shift.
• 20:57
  Rupert Isaacson: What's the name of that school out of interest
• 20:58
  in case people want to know?
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  Alex Northover: It's called Beach Hall.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Mm
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  Alex Northover: hmm.
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  And it's a really lovely, lovely school.
• 21:05
  Very nice school.
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  And Yeah, they've they've, I would, I'm not sure what the name of the
• 21:12
  award they got was, but it's really, it's a really lovely setting.
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  And I think I do see a shift in understanding towards that.
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  And so many primary schools are now including like forest
• 21:24
  school type elements and outdoor learning and outdoor classrooms.
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  I'm seeing more and more of that.
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  I'm also seeing schools being more receptive to you know, I've done
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  training, been into schools, offered training, offered through the teachers
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  unions to school practitioners from a number of different Schools
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  across the sort of Northwest.
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  I think there is an awareness that we are currently not meeting need.
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  And one of the things I really love working about working with
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  these young people is that I think that they are a barometer.
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  So, They let you know that they are struggling, but that probably
• 22:02
  means that everybody is struggling.
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  So, being clued in to these learners and their experience of the physical
• 22:10
  space of the classroom and the content of the lesson is a really great.
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  They're the canaries in the mineshaft.
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  It's a really great way to sort of sit back, you know.
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  Sit back and think what are you doing?
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  Well, what are your areas for improvement?
• 22:27
  What could you change as a classroom practitioner?
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  Because if they're struggling everyone's struggling, but some
• 22:34
  children just hide it better than others
• 22:37
  Rupert Isaacson: okay, so you started as
• 22:44
  the same horsey horse obsessed girl that I was
• 22:50
  and Here you are delivering extraordinary things through horses
• 22:56
  You Take us back to the beginning.
• 22:59
  Take us back to your family.
• 23:00
  Take us back to your mum and dad.
• 23:02
  Take us back to how does, how does one go from just being a, you know, standard
• 23:08
  pony obsessed girl, person, boy, and ending up where you've ended up because
• 23:17
  it's unusual and it's extraordinary.
• 23:20
  Talk us through that chronology, please.
• 23:23
  Alex Northover: So, I and my brother started having riding lessons at a local
• 23:28
  riding school mobily riding school, which unfortunately no longer exists.
• 23:32
  But they, it was a very, I think everybody in Cheshire went riding and
• 23:35
  mobily riding school at some point, it was sort of the local center.
• 23:39
  And my mum had always loved horses and wanted to ride as a little
• 23:45
  girl, but hadn't really had the financial means to ever do it.
• 23:49
  with any kind of degree of frequency or you know, to any great extent.
• 23:54
  So I think when we were little, she really wanted us to be able to have
• 23:57
  the opportunities that she hadn't been able to have when she was younger.
• 24:00
  And maybe a little bit for her own benefit too, because she would have a
• 24:04
  lesson while we had a lesson as well.
• 24:05
  So she got to ride as well.
• 24:07
  And then I rode at riding schools in the area and had, you know, really, I
• 24:12
  was really lucky with the quality and the standard of tuition I got from.
• 24:16
  Both at Moberly Riding School and also by a lovely gentleman called Joe Gates, who
• 24:21
  I went and worked as a Saturday Girl for.
• 24:24
  So I worked at the riding school, got the ponies ready, and then
• 24:27
  in return I got a What a ride.
• 24:30
  And that's back in the days where you could do that.
• 24:33
  I don't know that that's so much a thing anymore.
• 24:36
  But and then I
• 24:37
  Rupert Isaacson: wonder how anyone gets their skills anymore.
• 24:39
  Alex Northover: Yeah.
• 24:40
  Yeah.
• 24:40
  Yeah.
• 24:41
  It's just true.
• 24:42
  And then I had my first pony when I was about, I think I was 13 or 14 at
• 24:47
  the Welsh Cobb and then, yeah, they've kind of been a a fixture ever since.
• 24:53
  Rupert Isaacson: And what did you do?
• 24:55
  Just again, quickly for listeners who aren't familiar with the UK
• 24:59
  Cheshire, which is where Alex grew up and is still operating is one of
• 25:06
  the great horsey areas of the UK.
• 25:09
  Partly because it's one of the areas that has large amounts of dairy farming,
• 25:14
  which means that there's fox hunting that goes across big, big hedges.
• 25:19
  So it's known.
• 25:21
  Within the UK as a place where people ride.
• 25:25
  Well, they have to kind of ride well to get across that country So talk to us
• 25:29
  about the the types of riding you got involved with and then how that parlayed
• 25:35
  Into the equine assisted stuff over time.
• 25:39
  Alex Northover: So I had when I had the my first ponies, I did a lot
• 25:46
  of showing and many did mountain and moorland working hunter.
• 25:50
  Rupert Isaacson: What does that mean if you're not from the UK?
• 25:52
  Alex Northover: Yeah.
• 25:52
  So mountain and moorland are our native ponies.
• 25:55
  They're either up a mountain or on the moorland.
• 25:57
  So that's your Welsh cobs.
• 25:58
  Your Dales, your Fells, your Highlands, and they, yes or your, or your native.
• 26:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Or your little evil bastards, basically.
• 26:08
  Alex Northover: No, lovely, lovely horses.
• 26:11
  And Working Hunter is a showing class where you have, I don't know
• 26:15
  if there's an American equivalent.
• 26:17
  You do rustic jumps but they're, you know, It's not cross
• 26:22
  country, they're show jumps.
• 26:23
  So they, they will fall if you knock them.
• 26:25
  You do a round of rustic jumps that's supposed to simulate what
• 26:29
  you might find in the hunting field.
• 26:30
  So you might get water trays, you might get brush fences to simulate a hedge,
• 26:35
  you might have gates that you have to jump ditches, those types of things.
• 26:38
  And then afterwards you do a ridden show to show your ponies
• 26:44
  way of going and schooling.
• 26:45
  And then they strip them down and look at confirmation and
• 26:48
  it's kind of a cumulative class.
• 26:51
  You get your places awarded off all of those elements.
• 26:54
  So yeah, that was that's Mountain Wall and Working Hunter.
• 26:57
  So I did that first and then I rode in our local riding clubs and pony clubs.
• 27:02
  So I was also doing some dressage and show jumping and cross country.
• 27:05
  And then I did some eventing and then affiliated eventing
• 27:09
  as I got older and the horses.
• 27:11
  Got bigger.
• 27:12
  I joined British venting.
• 27:14
  We did everything.
• 27:16
  I also did like endurance riding and La Trek, which is similar
• 27:21
  to working equitation, but over.
• 27:25
  A bigger space so like you do a day of orienteering on horseback, and then you
• 27:30
  do control of the paces so there's a corridor that's marked out you have to
• 27:35
  counter as slow as you can and walk as fast as you can without breaking pace.
• 27:39
  And then you do a series of obstacles that are set out around.
• 27:43
  A couple of fields and they again are supposed to be the things that you might
• 27:46
  meet out if you were on a, a track.
• 27:49
  So there's steps and banks and you have to get horses in and out of
• 27:53
  trailers and they have to stand in one area and you leave them and walk
• 27:56
  away and it's supposed to show that your horse is an obedient, capable.
• 28:01
  track leader type of horse.
• 28:03
  We did that and we did anything, anything I could go to, anything I could do.
• 28:08
  I always just wanted to learn.
• 28:10
  I always just wanted to have fun.
• 28:11
  I didn't do anything very well.
• 28:13
  I'm never, I'm not particularly competitive.
• 28:16
  And I also suffer quite badly.
• 28:19
  I'd suffer quite badly from from performance anxiety as well.
• 28:22
  So I, my worst riding, I always did.
• 28:25
  under the eagle eye of judges, but I just wanted to do everything.
• 28:29
  I just wanted to spend as much time with my horses as possible.
• 28:31
  So if there was any, anywhere to go, any demo to watch, anything to try,
• 28:35
  any activity, I would always do it.
• 28:38
  And we hunted and we did you know, just everything, everything I could
• 28:42
  do, pony club rallies, anything that the riding club was offering,
• 28:45
  any visiting trainer, any clinic.
• 28:47
  I did, I did it all.
• 28:49
  But yeah, we did that and then
• 28:54
  Rupert Isaacson: believe that, but yeah,
• 28:55
  Alex Northover: yeah, well, you can, you can look the results up.
• 28:58
  I promise you.
• 28:59
  And then yeah, over time, I guess, the horse that I still have actually
• 29:03
  that I bought in 1996, he's 32.
• 29:06
  Next year.
• 29:06
  So Louie is still going and he was the horse that I did most of that with as a
• 29:10
  teenager and in my 20s and he actually came away with me to university twice.
• 29:14
  So he did my undergraduate degree with me at Nottingham.
• 29:17
  I did an environmental biology degree and he also did a postgraduate diploma at
• 29:21
  Aberystwyth that I did in Equine Science.
• 29:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Is he going for his PhD?
• 29:26
  Alex Northover: He, by hook or by crook, yes, hopefully we'll
• 29:28
  get him to the end of it, yeah.
• 29:29
  So he's very well educated.
• 29:30
  It's a very well educated horse in every sense of the word.
• 29:33
  And yeah, he just, we just did everything, everything with him.
• 29:37
  And had a lot of fun and met a lot of wonderful people.
• 29:41
  And I was very, again, very lucky to have input from some
• 29:44
  really great supportive trainers.
• 29:49
  I feel very blessed to have had a lot of people move through my life
• 29:51
  and share their knowledge with me.
• 29:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so how does this suddenly become an equine assisted gig?
• 29:56
  This is all very much, you know, riding, good riding, sport riding,
• 30:01
  educational riding, learning.
• 30:03
  Yeah, where does it suddenly go into service?
• 30:05
  Alex Northover: So the two things kind of were running in parallel.
• 30:08
  So, I guess if we kind of take a jump forward to around, it was like
• 30:11
  2016 2016, 2017, I was working.
• 30:17
  I had left mainstream education because I had become frustrated with it.
• 30:22
  I had become frustrated with feeling like we were sort of cramming square pegs in
• 30:27
  round holes and it didn't feel right.
• 30:30
  It didn't feel productive.
• 30:31
  I wasn't enjoying it.
• 30:32
  And exactly what you were saying before about the adults becoming burnt out.
• 30:35
  That's really what happened to me.
• 30:37
  And I left my job and went to go and work at the pupil referral
• 30:42
  unit, which I liked better.
• 30:44
  It was more relationship based and it felt more nurturing and more focused
• 30:47
  on the individual rather than this kind of educational conveyor belt.
• 30:50
  That is, unfortunately.
• 30:53
  what mainstream education is often like.
• 30:56
  And we went to, at the same time I was working with a trainer called
• 31:01
  Charlotte Whitlam who had recently moved into Cheshire from Portugal.
• 31:07
  So Charlotte is Swedish, but had come via the Valences, the great horse trainers
• 31:12
  in Portugal, had been working there for a while and then had moved into the UK.
• 31:17
  And we started having lessons with her.
• 31:20
  And I went to a lecture demo that she was participating in and one
• 31:25
  of the speakers at the lecture demo was talking about horseboy.
• 31:29
  And it was a very odd, I had not, I had never heard of
• 31:33
  horseboy up until this point.
• 31:34
  I hadn't seen the film, I hadn't read the books, I had literally no knowledge.
• 31:38
  But she just shared her experience.
• 31:41
  And it was a very odd, a very odd kind of experience.
• 31:45
  Eureka type moments.
• 31:47
  So the only thing I can equate it to is if you ride, you know, when you hit the
• 31:51
  perfect stride and everything slows down.
• 31:54
  And just focuses and it was like all these sort of mirrors lined up in my
• 31:58
  mind and I had this perfect moment of clarity and this perfect shot of
• 32:02
  everything she was saying ran so true with my, my background with the horses,
• 32:07
  my own experience of being around the horses, my own experience as a human
• 32:10
  being, and what I felt about working with young people and the education
• 32:15
  system, it just made so much sense.
• 32:17
  It was like a little bell going off in my head.
• 32:20
  So I came home and I looked you up and I emailed.
• 32:26
  And I was like, can I come?
• 32:28
  And I did.
• 32:28
  So I came to Texas for the summer and did my horseboy training with you guys.
• 32:34
  And I didn't, again, showing my ignorance.
• 32:37
  I didn't know until I got there and you started showing me the patterns.
• 32:41
  I was like, Oh, I've, I've done these before.
• 32:43
  I didn't know the connection.
• 32:44
  And then because it's what I had been doing with Charlotte.
• 32:47
  So yeah, it was, I think, I don't know how it happened.
• 32:51
  It was kismet.
• 32:52
  But it was like, Oh, this is, this is what I've, this is what all
• 32:55
  this other stuff has happened for.
• 32:57
  This is the preparation that what, this is what I've been waiting for.
• 33:00
  This is what it's been getting me ready for.
• 33:01
  And the universe kind of delivered at the perfect time.
• 33:05
  Rupert Isaacson: What was so interesting?
• 33:06
  I remember when I first met you and you came out to Texas and
• 33:09
  this is quite a few years ago.
• 33:12
  And, you know, I'm saying, okay, this is how we train our horses.
• 33:17
  And we've got to get, you know, collection for the oxytocin for the communication and
• 33:21
  calm down the nervous system and so on.
• 33:24
  And.
• 33:25
  You, I, I demo it and then you take the horse and start doing, I'm
• 33:31
  like, Oh, you've done this before.
• 33:33
  And the level of competence was extraordinary.
• 33:37
  And then he said, Oh, Charlotte Wittbom and then, okay, and now she's
• 33:40
  been with the Valenzas Valenzas.
• 33:41
  Well, they're my trainers, the Valenzas, and it was a very strange moment to have
• 33:46
  this kind of, okay, we're absolutely coming from the same place, but what,
• 33:52
  what prompted you to go to Charlotte?
• 33:55
  And by the way, we, we need to do a big ups for Charlotte here.
• 33:58
  Yeah.
• 33:58
  Yeah.
• 33:58
  She's ace.
• 33:59
  If anyone is listening, if you're in the UK and you want to get proper job trained
• 34:07
  with a horse, go to Charlotte Wittbom.
• 34:10
  And it doesn't matter whether it's dressage, she can take
• 34:13
  you all the way through.
• 34:14
  It doesn't matter if it's just general riding or horsemanship, she
• 34:17
  can take you all the way through.
• 34:18
  And she's just such a nice person.
• 34:21
  Alex Northover: Yeah, she's lovely.
• 34:22
  Rupert Isaacson: But what's so interesting was, why did you, because
• 34:26
  you'd come like me, you'd come through the hunting world, you'd come through
• 34:28
  the jumping world, the eventing world.
• 34:32
  And then suddenly you found yourself in this classical riding world.
• 34:36
  What, what, what, what made you do that?
• 34:39
  Alex Northover: I think it's almost inevitable.
• 34:40
  I think if you, I think if you spend, if, if you spend enough time with horses
• 34:45
  doing anything and you are interested and you're kind of approaching it from a,
• 34:51
  a, a way of wanting to absorb and learn, I think everybody circles back to the
• 34:57
  classical tradition at some point because It is the root of everything and any type
• 35:04
  of work you're doing and, and knowing what I know now, looking back on all of
• 35:10
  the stuff that I had had before and it's something I say to the people that I am
• 35:14
  working with now, like you, maybe other people don't explain it as explicitly,
• 35:20
  but if you have somebody coming to work you know, a horse behaviorist,
• 35:24
  what's the first thing he does?
• 35:25
  Everybody yields the quarters.
• 35:27
  It might look slightly different, but everybody's moving through the patterns.
• 35:30
  Everybody's asking the horse to cross the midline.
• 35:32
  Everybody's building the BDNF because that's what creates the yes brained horse.
• 35:37
  Maybe they don't explain it in the same way.
• 35:41
  Maybe they aren't aware that's what they're doing.
• 35:43
  They just know that it works.
• 35:44
  But if you're a tiny kid learning to load a pony and it won't go on the
• 35:49
  trailer, the first thing somebody tells you to do is circle it.
• 35:53
  move it, get it to move it, move it away from me.
• 35:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Specifically get the inside hind leg
• 35:56
  under the point of gravity.
• 35:57
  Yeah.
• 35:58
  Alex Northover: Exactly.
• 35:58
  So I think if you're, if you're kind of, interested in being better at working
• 36:04
  horses from the ground, understanding them better, producing them, having
• 36:10
  them be sounder, having them be more on your side in a way that is.
• 36:14
  You know, collaborative and low force.
• 36:17
  You, you were always going to end up in that place.
• 36:19
  I think it's kind of unavoidable, unavoidable, really.
• 36:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 36:23
  You, you said three things that, that some people may not be familiar with.
• 36:28
  And I think it'd be helpful if you explained, you said the patterns, you
• 36:34
  said the BDNF, and you said the yes horse.
• 36:39
  What are the patterns?
• 36:41
  What is BDNF and why do patterns and BDNF get you a yes horse?
• 36:45
  Can you explain it?
• 36:47
  Alex Northover: Absolutely.
• 36:48
  It'd be my pleasure.
• 36:48
  So, when the system that we work with was sort of not, not designed,
• 36:54
  but described by the Valences.
• 36:56
  So it's the classical tradition that everybody uses, but this is their
• 36:59
  way of presenting the information.
• 37:06
  They all involve initially working the horse from the
• 37:09
  ground in these set patterns.
• 37:11
  So you And do it in a variety of different ways.
• 37:15
  You can work a horse from a cavesson on a long line, you can work them with the
• 37:19
  reins, but you're always asking them to move the body in these certain set
• 37:24
  patterns, which basically involve either flexion or counterflection and either the
• 37:29
  quarters moving around the shoulder or the shoulder moving around the quarters.
• 37:33
  And every time the horse moves away from you, you're asking them to engage,
• 37:37
  lift their core and step the inside hind under the midline to produce.
• 37:42
  Method of carriage that is the classical idea of how a horse should
• 37:46
  look when you are mounted on it.
• 37:48
  It's, it's about furnishing the horse the best way possible, producing it
• 37:51
  the best way possible so that it can successfully carry your weight with the
• 37:55
  maximum amount of comfort and perform the movement to the best of your ability.
• 37:59
  It's abilities, you know, whatever those movements happen to be,
• 38:02
  any of the dressage movements.
• 38:04
  So those are the patterns.
• 38:05
  It's a flexion or counter flexion, shoulders around quarters or
• 38:09
  quarters around shoulders.
• 38:10
  There's two
• 38:11
  Rupert Isaacson: patterns.
• 38:11
  Alex Northover: Yes, and you move, you move, there's variations on two patterns.
• 38:15
  One for the
• 38:15
  Rupert Isaacson: inside hind leg, one for the outside hind leg.
• 38:16
  The outside
• 38:17
  Alex Northover: hind leg, yeah, and inside hind to outside and, and vice versa.
• 38:21
  So you're, you're moving them round.
• 38:23
  It's exactly the same thing as people, if you're having a dressage lesson
• 38:27
  or a flat work lesson, it's what your trainer tells you from the ground
• 38:30
  to do as a, as a mounted rider, but we instill it first on the horse.
• 38:35
  In the groundwork, so it's one person on the ground teaching the
• 38:40
  horse how to move what the cues mean and how the how to move their body.
• 38:45
  And so there's the patterns.
• 38:47
  And then the result of that is because of how the brain engages.
• 38:55
  through those movement patterns, because the horse is having to
• 38:58
  balance and shift its weight and move its limbs across its midline.
• 39:03
  It triggers a set of physiological responses within the brain.
• 39:07
  So it engages something, a release called something called BDNF, which is
• 39:11
  the brain derived neurotrophic factor.
• 39:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Brain derived neurotrophic factor.
• 39:17
  Alex Northover: So It means that derived as in, its, its nearby.
• 39:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Brian's, Brian's brain driving,
• 39:24
  Alex Northover: driving tractors.
• 39:25
  Yeah,
• 39:25
  Rupert Isaacson: driving tractors.
• 39:27
  The thrown, like both smart like tractors,
• 39:30
  . Alex Northover: It's a growth factor essentially.
• 39:32
  So, it, what you are doing is producing these chemical cues in your
• 39:36
  brain that the, the brain produces.
• 39:39
  So brain derived.
• 39:40
  signals that it is made within the brain.
• 39:42
  Neurotrophic means that it produces the growth of neurons.
• 39:47
  So yes, so plants can be phototrophic.
• 39:50
  So they grow towards light.
• 39:52
  This is neurotrophic.
• 39:53
  It's the growth of brain cells, brain neurons, and then factor
• 39:58
  because that's what it's doing.
• 40:00
  That's the chemical key.
• 40:01
  That's what it causes.
• 40:02
  So you're generating neuroplasticity.
• 40:05
  You're developing, learning, you're creating new pathways.
• 40:09
  And it's really lovely because that doesn't only happen for the horse.
• 40:13
  It also happens for you because as you're moving across the ground
• 40:16
  and moving through the patterns, you also are crossing your midline.
• 40:19
  You're also doing bilateral engagement because your left hand, your right
• 40:22
  hand, your left foot and your right foot are all doing a hokey cokey at
• 40:25
  different places and different times.
• 40:27
  So it does the same thing in your brain.
• 40:30
  And it's a really nice window into working collaboratively with the horse, because
• 40:35
  this is something you're doing together.
• 40:37
  You are mirroring them, they're mirroring you.
• 40:39
  It forms a beautiful relationship.
• 40:42
  And that neuroplasticity that develops mean that this means that
• 40:45
  the horse becomes this yes horse.
• 40:47
  So they, they are in that brain state where there, there's a level
• 40:52
  of arousal that means they're switched on, but they're calm.
• 40:55
  So they're looking for the challenge.
• 40:57
  They, they don't approach things.
• 40:59
  Fearfully and it's so essential for our horses in particular because
• 41:05
  our sessions can look very strange.
• 41:08
  You know, you might have a child that comes one day and decides they want to do
• 41:11
  something that involves, you know, waving flags, or we had a young man who used to
• 41:17
  come, he invented a brilliant game, which involved lobbing space hoppers off the top
• 41:21
  of the horse, cantering off the top of the horse, lobbing space hoppers, like tag.
• 41:28
  It was like dodge ball, but with space hoppers and, you know, the
• 41:31
  horse has to just come with you and be accepting of these really weird
• 41:36
  scenarios that with, that often involve.
• 41:39
  mad things.
• 41:40
  And it's, it, you know, there's obviously desensitization that is
• 41:43
  happening as well, but a lot of it is around just that headspace where the
• 41:47
  horse has this neuroplasticity and wants to work with you and for you.
• 41:51
  That's what the yes horse is.
• 41:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 41:54
  Okay.
• 41:54
  So basically you're talking about growing a horse in your brain.
• 42:00
  And growing a monkey, a human, a new brain, while working with that horse,
• 42:05
  both of them crossing the midline the whole time, getting the speed ANF thing.
• 42:10
  How does that then help the person, the kid, the adult, who might be the client,
• 42:17
  the service user, who's on, on board with that horse or working that horse
• 42:22
  on the ground in a therapeutic way?
• 42:24
  How, how do they get neuroplasticity through that same thing?
• 42:28
  Alex Northover: Well, the same, so the same kind of, because
• 42:31
  we're all mammals, right?
• 42:31
  So we have the same pathways, we have the same basic kind
• 42:34
  of underlying neurobiology.
• 42:37
  So, in the same way as the person on the ground is engaging the vestibular system
• 42:45
  and balancing and you know, receiving all that BDNF and engaging neuroplasticity and
• 42:50
  switching on all of those neurons on those new pathways, the same thing has happened
• 42:54
  to the person that's mounted because they're balancing on the horse that's
• 42:57
  moving dynamically through three phases.
• 43:00
  Sorry through three planes.
• 43:02
  So they're moving forward through space.
• 43:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Three dimensions.
• 43:05
  Alex Northover: Yeah, they're moving.
• 43:06
  And as, as they're moving that they move, there's a, the swing
• 43:09
  of the call left to right.
• 43:11
  So you're going that way as well.
• 43:13
  And then you're also going up and down in space.
• 43:15
  So you're kind of being moved through space.
• 43:18
  forward, sideways and up and down at the same time.
• 43:21
  So you're getting a lot on
• 43:23
  Rupert Isaacson: top of one of
• 43:23
  Alex Northover: the other person on top.
• 43:24
  Yeah.
• 43:25
  So you're you know, getting a big hit of, of movement all the time of
• 43:30
  regulatory movement all the time.
• 43:32
  And it engages the same systems in the brain.
• 43:35
  So you're getting the BDNF for the person as well.
• 43:38
  And it's also producing these, great experiences that are just really good fun.
• 43:43
  Like we just laugh.
• 43:44
  We just, there's just, it's just constant giggles and laughing and singing and joy.
• 43:48
  It's just a lovely space to be in that feels very different from anything else.
• 43:52
  And because they can do things on the horse.
• 43:56
  That they maybe wouldn't be able to do independently and because they
• 43:59
  have that feeling of like autonomy and control, like, we want to go here.
• 44:03
  That's where we're going.
• 44:04
  They get to decide what games they're going to play, how
• 44:08
  it's going to be set up.
• 44:09
  And, you know, that creates a huge sense of empowerment and just great feeling
• 44:13
  for the young person who probably doesn't have a lot of autonomy and
• 44:17
  choice in other parts of their lives.
• 44:19
  Rupert Isaacson: You just used the word joy.
• 44:22
  What makes working in this way?
• 44:27
  particularly joyful for you.
• 44:31
  I've seen how you work.
• 44:32
  I've seen how joyful it is.
• 44:33
  Why?
• 44:38
  Alex Northover: That's an interesting question.
• 44:39
  Why?
• 44:39
  Why?
• 44:40
  I think, I think the same things that are true for the young people we work
• 44:44
  with are true for us as practitioners.
• 44:47
  So I'm also in an environment where I'm able to fully meet
• 44:50
  my regulatory movement needs.
• 44:52
  And I think you know, I'm sure anybody who is listening to this podcast knows how
• 44:58
  good it is to be around horses and how.
• 45:00
  That you know, the Winston Churchill quote something about the outside of a horse
• 45:05
  that's good for an inside, the inside of a man, you know, they, they, they're lovely.
• 45:09
  They're just lovely beings to, to share a space with.
• 45:12
  And even when they're being a bit, you know, fruity or a
• 45:14
  bit naughty, it's still fun.
• 45:16
  You know, I never, I have always felt like that.
• 45:19
  But it's,
• 45:24
  I think it's, It feels productive.
• 45:27
  I get a great sense of satisfaction out of doing what we're doing.
• 45:30
  It feels helpful.
• 45:31
  It feels I think if you're spending time with other people and everybody's
• 45:35
  having fun and a good time and, you know, everybody's feeling good about it,
• 45:40
  there's no way for you not to get carried along in that way because we're social
• 45:45
  apes and we share those emotional states.
• 45:47
  So it is, you know, it's the whole tribe is having a good time
• 45:49
  and we all laugh and have fun.
• 45:52
  It's great.
• 45:55
  Rupert Isaacson: What you're describing there doesn't sound like
• 45:58
  a classical dressage lesson where normally you're being told, you
• 46:03
  know, that's all wrong and that shit.
• 46:04
  And it also doesn't sound much like a sort of regular therapeutic riding
• 46:11
  lesson where one might observe, you know, kids being led in circles.
• 46:17
  Maybe doing some things like posting a letter in a letterbox or something and it
• 46:25
  also doesn't sound much like, the normal equine assisted thing where one might
• 46:33
  be brought to a rampen or an arena with some horses doing some stuff and invited
• 46:41
  to a in a rather serious way interpret, you know, the horses might or might not
• 46:49
  be doing in a way that helps you reflect on, you know, your own emotional state.
• 46:58
  It's not that any of those three things that I've just described, the dressage
• 47:01
  lesson, the therapeutic riding lesson, or the equine assisted session aren't
• 47:08
  helpful because, and they clearly are, but
• 47:12
  they're not necessarily joyful.
• 47:15
  And by joyful, what I mean is You wouldn't look at them and say, oh, that's good
• 47:20
  crack, like, well, I want to do that because that just looks like so much
• 47:23
  fun, you know, you like, you might look at it and go, Oh, that's quite serious.
• 47:26
  I could sort of see.
• 47:28
  Oh, you know how there might be a, you know, a helpful thing there.
• 47:32
  And, you know, we're all required to be a bit reverential around
• 47:36
  this, but what you're, what you're describing sounds quite iconoclastic.
• 47:39
  It sounds quite, yeah.
• 47:41
  in a funny way rebellious.
• 47:42
  How is it that you can do that and make it feel like you're breaking the rules
• 47:47
  while at the same time observing these classical patterns that you talked about?
• 47:51
  How can observing these classical patterns help you to feel that you've broken free?
• 47:57
  That almost sounds like a paradox.
• 48:00
  Yeah,
• 48:02
  Alex Northover: I, I think, I think embracing
• 48:05
  Rupert Isaacson: what's the, what's, yeah,
• 48:07
  Alex Northover: Yeah, I think embracing the chaos and you have to, I think, you
• 48:11
  know, if you remember what the classical patterns were originally intended to
• 48:14
  produce, there is nothing reverential or controlled about a battlefield or
• 48:20
  a bullfighting because you're talking
• 48:21
  Rupert Isaacson: about training the horse for war.
• 48:23
  Right.
• 48:23
  Alex Northover: Yeah.
• 48:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 48:24
  Alex Northover: So, I mean, obviously.
• 48:26
  We have a lot less death and goring, but we, you know, we
• 48:30
  have the same sort of chaos.
• 48:31
  Hopefully we have the same sorts of chaotic res we responding in the
• 48:35
  moment, I think is the key thing.
• 48:37
  So yes, that's true, but when you are producing anything from practice into
• 48:45
  its, implementation in the same way as when you're coming across the hunting
• 48:50
  field up until the hedge, or you're moving through your cross country course, or
• 48:54
  you're going onto your battlefield, you know, in with your warhorse, or you're
• 48:58
  going into a bullfighting arena, or, and we are responding at a moment in
• 49:03
  time, and things do not go as planned.
• 49:06
  in those environments run predictably to plan.
• 49:10
  You have to, there is an element of being responsive in the moment.
• 49:14
  And I think that's, that's all we're doing is just being responsive in the
• 49:17
  moment to where the young person is emotionally, intellectually, spiritually,
• 49:22
  what they want to be doing in that moment.
• 49:24
  And always with a focus of the fun, the joy and getting that feeling of, you
• 49:32
  know, euphoria for the young person.
• 49:35
  I want them to leave with that feeling.
• 49:38
  Rupert Isaacson: It's almost like we're taking the way of training a horse to
• 49:45
  basically harm our fellow man, which is, but it seems to have this Feel good
• 49:51
  by product and this neuroplasticity by product which I guess it has to otherwise
• 49:57
  why would the horse Change its brain so it could go into the battlefield
• 50:01
  and Then using that same thing to heal your fellow man rather than harm your
• 50:10
  fellow man That's an intriguing concept.
• 50:12
  Can you, can you just speak to that a little bit?
• 50:15
  I
• 50:16
  Alex Northover: think something that you had said to me when and
• 50:19
  I think you only said it once.
• 50:20
  I've never heard you say it again, but it really struck true to me.
• 50:24
  When I was doing my training, you talked about the environment and the
• 50:27
  fact that if you think about paradise or kind of the, you know, the, the
• 50:32
  religious representation of what paradise is, the garden of Eden, and
• 50:36
  Elysium fields, all of those things, it's nature with the danger removed.
• 50:40
  So, you know, that that's how you communicated that when you
• 50:44
  were training me and I think I think it's the same thing.
• 50:47
  So it's the excitement with the danger removed.
• 50:50
  So, you know, in any moment we're doing these things that.
• 50:53
  sound hectic, but because of how carefully we produce the horses and how well
• 50:58
  staffed we are and how well managed we are and how switched on we are there
• 51:02
  is, you can just embrace the moment of this kind of fantastical experience, but
• 51:07
  there's the, the, it is done in a very controlled way where everything is safe.
• 51:12
  Rupert Isaacson: So exciting the sympathetic nervous system without
• 51:17
  it going over into the red zone.
• 51:19
  Alex Northover: Yes.
• 51:19
  Rupert Isaacson: So that it inspires you to.
• 51:23
  I guess that's the nature of fun, isn't it?
• 51:24
  That's what fun is, right?
• 51:26
  Yeah,
• 51:26
  Alex Northover: it's riding the rollercoaster.
• 51:28
  You know, so that sensation and that fun and the kind of, the concept of
• 51:32
  doing something that feels extreme, but doing it in a very safe, controlled way.
• 51:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Now, some people might say that word extreme or
• 51:41
  that word exciting, that has no place in a therapeutic environment.
• 51:46
  Why does it work to actually have that in a therapeutic environment?
• 51:51
  And what makes it actually work?
• 51:55
  Safe like what are you doing?
• 51:57
  You've talked to us through these patterns, but what are you doing to a
• 52:00
  horse that makes it possible to make it seem to the kid or the service user or the
• 52:08
  client that things are a little bit wild?
• 52:14
  But to actually know, you the practitioner, they're knowing
• 52:19
  you've got to be responsible for keeping these kids that are coming
• 52:22
  from an educational authority or whatever, like, properly safe.
• 52:26
  Alex Northover: So,
• 52:27
  Rupert Isaacson: I
• 52:30
  Alex Northover: think it's having really clear communication.
• 52:34
  With the young person with the horse with the staff about what is happening, what
• 52:39
  everybody's role is within a session.
• 52:41
  So, we have a very high staff to person ratio.
• 52:47
  And, you know, if somebody is doing something that involves like a game of
• 52:51
  tag or something like that, there will be.
• 52:54
  Members of staff who are sort of hamming up the role of being silly and
• 52:58
  throwing themselves around the ground, but equally there will be people that
• 53:01
  are sidewalking with the horse and the rider and, and, and there as a
• 53:05
  backup and an extra pair of hands and maintaining and monitoring the situation.
• 53:10
  And we always have very clear kind of open lines of communication whereby
• 53:17
  anybody at any point absolutely has total permission and carte blanche
• 53:20
  to say this doesn't feel good.
• 53:21
  And I think we should stop and we do.
• 53:23
  It doesn't, you know, it doesn't really happen because of how
• 53:27
  carefully everything is set up.
• 53:28
  But at any point, if anybody doesn't feel comfortable, they are
• 53:31
  absolutely empowered to say that and we change what we're doing.
• 53:39
  Rupert Isaacson: You know, where we arrived at from, from what you just,
• 53:44
  to what you just said is if you think back to all of the horse education and
• 53:51
  knowledge that you've gone through in order to know how to prepare a horse for
• 53:56
  this job, to prepare a horse for that job, to know how to make a horse safe and
• 53:59
  effective in this type of show ring or in the hunt field where things are a bit
• 54:04
  chaotic or this or this, then adding that classical riding component and then adding
• 54:08
  humans that can put all this together.
• 54:11
  adding some brain science.
• 54:13
  Okay.
• 54:14
  I can see how that all goes, particularly if you have the right people and the right
• 54:18
  horses, you know, preparing well together.
• 54:22
  At the same time,
• 54:26
  it sounds like you also have to be prepared to risk a little bit the apparent
• 54:36
  loss of control in order to gain some sort of mental or emotional step forward.
• 54:44
  How do you, how do you bridge that?
• 54:48
  That, that's a tricky thing to bridge.
• 54:50
  How do you, how do you do that?
• 54:53
  Alex Northover: I think not being, it's sort of releasing your own ego.
• 54:57
  So How do you do that?
• 54:58
  I
• 54:58
  Rupert Isaacson: mean, I've been trying to do that for 500 years and, yeah.
• 55:02
  Alex Northover: I think, I think approaching things with a
• 55:04
  sense of curiosity and wonder.
• 55:06
  And, you know, and, and, and seeing what happens and understanding that
• 55:10
  it is, it's a it's approaching it as play as an, as experimentation and, you
• 55:15
  know, trying things out and not having you know, not, not having, not be too,
• 55:22
  not being too strongly married to the idea of your concept of how things will
• 55:26
  work out or what should be happening.
• 55:29
  The only thing that I want to happen is for the young person that's.
• 55:34
  with us to leave the space feeling happier and more regulated than
• 55:39
  they were when they arrived.
• 55:40
  That's my only aim.
• 55:41
  How we get there is dictated by them and It, I don't mind if they
• 55:48
  come and they don't want to have, they don't want to ride or do
• 55:51
  anything with the horses at all.
• 55:52
  Sometimes sessions look like that.
• 55:54
  And sometimes sessions are very calm and peaceful because that's how the young
• 55:57
  person presents their need at that time.
• 55:59
  Sometimes we lie in the sand and make shapes out of the clouds.
• 56:03
  Sometimes we go for a walk and collect flowers.
• 56:05
  Sometimes, you know, it might just be grooming and cuddling and
• 56:09
  spending time with the horses.
• 56:10
  It's a whole.
• 56:12
  So the gamut of allowing that young person to meet what their needs are
• 56:18
  in that moment and being set up in such a way that you can be responsive
• 56:23
  to however they show up, whatever they come with in that moment.
• 56:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so I'm a kid and I come to you and I'm
• 56:30
  not interested in horses at all.
• 56:31
  And I find myself being sent there for whatever reason.
• 56:35
  And what I'm interested in is
• 56:39
  Deadpool or a particular Pokemon character.
• 56:44
  Right.
• 56:46
  Maybe you're not interested in that.
• 56:50
  And they really don't want to engage with the horse, but your job is to, as you
• 56:56
  say, leave them feeling self regulated and, you know, as joyful as possible.
• 57:02
  And also perhaps to teach them something.
• 57:04
  Yeah.
• 57:05
  So.
• 57:07
  I arrive in my ten year old self, which frankly I never grew out of, so, and then
• 57:16
  I say, I communicate pretty strongly to you, no horse, and, or Deadpool, and,
• 57:26
  or this Pokemon, and I don't like your ducks, and I don't like your, this poo
• 57:34
  that's on the ground, and I don't like, I'm all about my my keeping my running
• 57:40
  shoes clean and I don't want to be told anything and I arrive In your yard.
• 57:49
  What do you do?
• 57:51
  Alex Northover: So I would provide As much as I could that was hinged around those
• 57:59
  special interests that are, you know, specific things that have been indicated
• 58:04
  to me that a young person wants, and it's in our intake form, we always ask
• 58:08
  and ask what they like and try and have as much of that available as possible.
• 58:14
  So if you turn up and you're not keen on the horses.
• 58:17
  That's absolutely fine.
• 58:18
  We won't do that at all.
• 58:19
  You can completely dictate that.
• 58:21
  It's no issue but there might be like, you know, we have to find
• 58:26
  Deadpool's limbs and put him, he, he regrows things, right, Deadpool?
• 58:29
  So maybe we have to go and find his new limbs that he needs to regrow and
• 58:33
  they'll be around the farmyard somewhere and then maybe we've got to paint them
• 58:36
  and put them together to like a giant push pun, push pin puppet type thing.
• 58:41
  And What I have found is over time, even people who, young people who
• 58:47
  were initially quite resistant or a little nervous of the horses, I
• 58:51
  think that comes from two places.
• 58:53
  First of all, it's lack of familiarity because horses are big and if you've
• 58:55
  not spent a lot of time with them, they can be quite intimidating.
• 58:58
  And also it's a feeling of demand.
• 59:02
  And most young people, with a little bit of time, once they realize that
• 59:07
  actually the no is going to be listened to and there's no expectation, there's
• 59:12
  no demand on my part for them to do anything other than what they want to
• 59:15
  do, those barriers begin to fall away.
• 59:18
  See the horses and sort of spend time on the yard and see other people come in and
• 59:22
  going and the horse is being worked in the background, that natural curiosity comes
• 59:26
  out and eventually they will want to try.
• 59:28
  That might look like they are just using the horse as a transport from Like around
• 59:34
  a treasure hunt or from point A or point B, we, we have a nice site here with
• 59:38
  lots of different pockets of things.
• 59:39
  We've got a woodland and a river and you know, we might
• 59:42
  be just riding to get somewhere because it's easier than walking.
• 59:46
  The legs
• 59:46
  Rupert Isaacson: get tired and suddenly the horse becomes an attractive option.
• 59:51
  Alex Northover: But equally, if, If, like I said, if you, if you have let
• 59:56
  go of that ego of the thing of that, you know, the child is coming to ride,
• 59:59
  if you don't have that as the core principle, if the core principle is just
• 1:00:02
  enjoyment and joy, it doesn't matter to me if the child chooses not to ride.
• 1:00:05
  It doesn't matter to me if they never get on a horse, as long as they are
• 1:00:08
  leaving more regulated and with a sense of joy and, you know, accomplishment
• 1:00:12
  and they've had a good time.
• 1:00:13
  And it's not it, you know, it's, it's an, it's about personal preference as well.
• 1:00:19
  So it might be that this, me as a person or a another member of staff is
• 1:00:24
  not the right person for that child.
• 1:00:25
  So maybe we try them with a different member of staff.
• 1:00:29
  Children usually gravitate towards the adult whose energy they like the best,
• 1:00:32
  and we tend to buddy them up in that way.
• 1:00:35
  But you know, for you, you, you pretty quickly know.
• 1:00:42
  the children who, for them, it is not the right thing.
• 1:00:46
  The horses are not the right thing.
• 1:00:47
  And then you have to find something else.
• 1:00:48
  You have to find another way of getting into that sort of
• 1:00:51
  emotional and physiological space.
• 1:00:53
  Rupert Isaacson: How often does that happen?
• 1:00:55
  Alex Northover: Rarely, very rarely.
• 1:00:59
  I think The whole time we've been doing this, I think we've only had
• 1:01:05
  two children who were a hard no and never wanted to do it.
• 1:01:07
  We've had children who were slow burners and it took a long time
• 1:01:11
  and then, you know, we've also had families who, you know, for various
• 1:01:15
  reasons have moved away or, you know, had medical challenges or whatever.
• 1:01:22
  That means they've gone on to something else, but it's unusual for, for somebody
• 1:01:27
  not to, want to do it eventually.
• 1:01:30
  But I think when the pressure is off and they can do it in their own time,
• 1:01:34
  that natural curiosity and that trust in that these adults aren't going to coerce
• 1:01:39
  or manipulate me into doing something that is counter to my own interests.
• 1:01:43
  So, you know, they are more willing to try something because they know
• 1:01:48
  that they can say, no, thank you.
• 1:01:50
  I've had enough or I want to stop now and not have an agenda pushed because
• 1:01:55
  there isn't an agenda, doesn't matter.
• 1:01:56
  Okay, that's
• 1:01:57
  Rupert Isaacson: the kid.
• 1:01:58
  Now, what if a teacher or a, someone brings the kids out from
• 1:02:02
  a local educational authority
• 1:02:06
  or a parent says, look, I've come here for equine therapy
• 1:02:12
  or equine assisted something.
• 1:02:15
  And this kid, Young person is supposed to engage with a horse
• 1:02:20
  and that's what I've come here.
• 1:02:22
  I'm spending the money and they must do this and Then let's say also a kid comes
• 1:02:29
  in with and they're just on their tablet They're just on the phone and you've got
• 1:02:36
  someone saying no get off your phone You know, this is time now for the war and
• 1:02:41
  you see this whole conflict unfolding.
• 1:02:47
  What's your strategy?
• 1:02:47
  What do you do?
• 1:02:48
  Alex Northover: I put them on the horse with the phone or the tablet.
• 1:02:51
  They want to sit on it.
• 1:02:52
  They can sit on the horse and sit on the phone and the tablet, and we
• 1:02:54
  will just go for a little hack and they will, will either long line
• 1:02:58
  or work from the ground so that the horse is moving comfortably for them.
• 1:03:01
  And if they want to be on it, they can be on it, but very quickly.
• 1:03:06
  It's a regulatory tool.
• 1:03:08
  And if, if you don't, sweat it, they get what they need from it and move on.
• 1:03:14
  Often it's to do with the transition.
• 1:03:16
  So, you know, if, if a young person, the transition into a new space can
• 1:03:19
  be difficult and the device is a way of like shutting out that stimulus.
• 1:03:24
  So, you know, that's fine.
• 1:03:26
  You can have a little watch of some videos while we're getting ready or,
• 1:03:30
  you know, or doing something, or you can just sit on the horse and watch videos,
• 1:03:32
  but pretty quickly, again, the demand aspect, if it's, if it's not, it doesn't
• 1:03:39
  become an issue if we don't make it one.
• 1:03:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:03:42
  And I think, go ahead, sorry, and I was going
• 1:03:44
  Alex Northover: to say, I think we, we sort of talk through these
• 1:03:47
  things very explicitly when.
• 1:03:49
  Providers or parents come at first, and I also stress the point that this is
• 1:03:56
  their family, they are the expert in their child, and if what I'm suggesting
• 1:04:01
  doesn't seem like a good model for them, if it doesn't seem like it rings
• 1:04:05
  true and you know, it sits comfortably in their gut for their child, then
• 1:04:09
  it probably isn't the right thing.
• 1:04:10
  And you know, in which case I can signpost you to maybe another service
• 1:04:15
  or somebody else that that might be able to to help you in a different way.
• 1:04:19
  If you don't feel that our approaches are marrying with your.
• 1:04:22
  Your sort of worldview on what you how you want to approach your child or
• 1:04:26
  what you think will work for your child
• 1:04:28
  Rupert Isaacson: And before teachers or local or parents or a local educational
• 1:04:31
  authority, whoever bring that young person out Are you giving them a bit of a
• 1:04:38
  free?
• 1:04:39
  heads up training Explanation of we work in this way because blah are you okay
• 1:04:45
  with that before you even come here or?
• 1:04:48
  Alex Northover: Yeah, there's usually a preamble.
• 1:04:49
  So if it's, if it's a school or somebody commissioning a service, there's,
• 1:04:53
  there's often been quite a long run up to the young person actually coming.
• 1:04:56
  The family play dates are a little bit different because people self refer to us.
• 1:05:01
  So again, we send information and we have a sort of a, an email conversation
• 1:05:07
  prior to the young person coming.
• 1:05:09
  And then when they come for the first time, we show them
• 1:05:11
  around, talk through what we do.
• 1:05:13
  I go through it.
• 1:05:14
  An overline of what a session might look like and then, you
• 1:05:17
  know, they, they, that either feels comfortable to them or it doesn't
• 1:05:21
  and that's okay if, if, if there's,
• 1:05:24
  Rupert Isaacson: but they have time to take in the, the, the,
• 1:05:27
  the work before they arrive.
• 1:05:28
  Alex Northover: Yes.
• 1:05:29
  Yeah.
• 1:05:30
  So they've had, they've had that information at the beginning.
• 1:05:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:05:35
  Now you also, this sounds very complex you also talked about
• 1:05:40
  not being married to a certain.
• 1:05:44
  Speaking of marriage and being married, you have another half and your other
• 1:05:49
  half, Lenny brings, is not a horse person,
• 1:05:55
  brings a lot to these sessions.
• 1:05:58
  Can you talk to us about, and she's not here to speak for herself,
• 1:06:02
  obviously, but can you talk to us about her, her role in this?
• 1:06:07
  And then how you guys, work as a team this way, because I think for a lot of
• 1:06:16
  people listening, there's an assumption that let's say I, the listener, want to
• 1:06:22
  set up some sort of equine assisted thing.
• 1:06:26
  There's often in one's head an idea of this is me, the individual setting
• 1:06:32
  up this thing for these people.
• 1:06:35
  However, I think as we all know the way human relationships work best because
• 1:06:40
  we're social apes is Through some sort of extended family tribe clan thing
• 1:06:47
  and at the center of that You know, even though I know you neither you nor
• 1:06:53
  Lenny look a day over 23 There has to be a sort of a tribal elder council.
• 1:07:01
  You know what I mean that and It seems to me that you and Lenny really do this.
• 1:07:08
  Lenny will kill me for saying she looks like an elder, but
• 1:07:11
  I'm speaking as an old soul.
• 1:07:14
  Right.
• 1:07:16
  Talk us through that dynamic and, and how you guys work together and what.
• 1:07:20
  Expertise Lenny brings, and maybe we should actually have her in, you know,
• 1:07:25
  for her own interview, but without that luxury right now, talk us through this
• 1:07:29
  whole dynamic of how making momentum with you and Lenny works, because I've watched
• 1:07:34
  it at work, and it's intriguing to me.
• 1:07:37
  Alex Northover: So I think we have complimentary, but differing personality
• 1:07:45
  types and knowledge bases and the things that, you know, That we sort
• 1:07:49
  of mesh together really nicely.
• 1:07:51
  So she has the same core set of values, but comes at it from a
• 1:07:57
  completely different perspective.
• 1:07:58
  So her practice is all around creativity, self expression, art making things.
• 1:08:04
  She was a ceramicist.
• 1:08:06
  Well, she is a ceramicist.
• 1:08:07
  So her degree is in ceramics and she was an art teacher.
• 1:08:11
  So she's very focused on creating, producing something, making things.
• 1:08:16
  And the nature of that in the same way as they approach the horse
• 1:08:20
  is very experimental, because you have to be able to make errors.
• 1:08:26
  You have to, you know, if you're producing a painting, like an oil painting or
• 1:08:31
  something, it's built in layers and there will be moments where you hate it and
• 1:08:34
  it looks awful and you've got to push through and adjust and, you know, in this,
• 1:08:39
  in this, with the ceramics, it's, it's a process that the material physically
• 1:08:43
  changes and, you know, things can go wrong and explode in the kiln and it's all about
• 1:08:48
  like, resilience and trusting the process.
• 1:08:51
  So it's, it's very Although it's a completely different field, I think
• 1:08:55
  lots of the core values and underpinning thought processes are very similar.
• 1:09:00
  So that works nicely together and in the same, as I was saying before, I think
• 1:09:05
  children gravitate towards the adult that is providing the sort of energetic
• 1:09:10
  space or the approach or the personality type that they need in that moment.
• 1:09:14
  And I know that there are kids that come that are Lenny kids and
• 1:09:17
  there are kids that come that are.
• 1:09:20
  My kids and there are kids that come, you know, that are drawn
• 1:09:23
  to another member of staff.
• 1:09:24
  We have great people that we work with.
• 1:09:26
  I have absolute joy with all the people we work with.
• 1:09:30
  They've got a cracking team and they all bring slightly different
• 1:09:34
  but complementary approaches, you know, so that might be the music.
• 1:09:39
  It might be sport.
• 1:09:41
  It might be an interest in, you know, anime or, you know, a another thing,
• 1:09:46
  but there's, there's a suite of skill sets that everybody brings something
• 1:09:52
  and there will always be a child that is really interested in that thing.
• 1:09:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you think that if to have a really effective equine
• 1:09:59
  assisted practice, you've actually got to have a number of people on
• 1:10:03
  the team who are not equine assisted, who are bringing other things in?
• 1:10:07
  Do you think it could work if everyone's just equine focused?
• 1:10:12
  Like give me your thoughts on that.
• 1:10:14
  Alex Northover: I think even if your team is equine focused, I mean the
• 1:10:17
  majority of our team is equine focused or have, you know, but, but they
• 1:10:21
  are, we are, none of us one thing.
• 1:10:22
  Nobody's a monolith.
• 1:10:23
  So, you know, as much as I eat, drink and breathe horses, there are
• 1:10:28
  other things that I am interested in, other things that I've pursued,
• 1:10:31
  other things in my background.
• 1:10:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Like what?
• 1:10:34
  Alex Northover: Well, I was a scientist, you know, science.
• 1:10:36
  So I'm interested in the natural world.
• 1:10:37
  I'm interested in the environment and ecology and the space that we live in.
• 1:10:41
  And you know, the, the, that is interesting to me.
• 1:10:44
  I really love physics.
• 1:10:45
  I wasn't a physicist.
• 1:10:46
  I was a biologist, but I, I'm really interested in those spaces.
• 1:10:50
  And I think everybody comes to the table with more than one offering.
• 1:10:56
  And it's just about Making sure that people have the opportunity to
• 1:11:00
  showcase their skills and talents and interests and knowledge.
• 1:11:03
  Rupert Isaacson: You mentioned science.
• 1:11:06
  I happen to know that you are doing something rather interesting
• 1:11:10
  and scientific through Manchester Metropolitan University.
• 1:11:15
  Could you talk us through that?
• 1:11:18
  Alex Northover: Yes.
• 1:11:18
  So I was lucky enough to receive a Fulbright scholarship, PhD
• 1:11:23
  scholarship from White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership which is a
• 1:11:29
  collaboration of several Northern universities, hence the white rose.
• 1:11:34
  So there's University of Leeds, University of York, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester
• 1:11:39
  Metropolitan University, Sheffield Hallam University, and the University of Hull.
• 1:11:44
  So they have funding, pools of funding for open core PhDs.
• 1:11:48
  So, with most PhDs, or it's more usual for PhDs that you
• 1:11:53
  apply to an existing project.
• 1:11:55
  Almost like a job role.
• 1:11:56
  So somebody will advertise the funding that they have, and you
• 1:11:59
  apply for that, and you get your PhD working on this larger project.
• 1:12:05
  These are open calls, so you submit the project you have designed, and
• 1:12:10
  it's your project that you've created.
• 1:12:14
  So they have different sort of streams, different areas of interest.
• 1:12:17
  So mine's their well well being health and communities pathway.
• 1:12:22
  So, My PhD is looking at co designing outcome measures for equity assisted
• 1:12:28
  supports with autistic co researchers.
• 1:12:31
  So it's forefronting the experiences, the lived experiences, and the, wishes and
• 1:12:40
  needs and feelings of what is important for autistic people for them to decide
• 1:12:45
  the success criteria of an equestrian
• 1:12:50
  Rupert Isaacson: support.
• 1:12:51
  Decoding what you just said in hub terms, that sounds an awful lot like letting
• 1:13:00
  autistic people tell therapists, equine assisted or otherwise, what works for
• 1:13:07
  them rather than being told what doesn't.
• 1:13:14
  Works for them.
• 1:13:16
  Alex Northover: Yeah.
• 1:13:16
  So that's
• 1:13:17
  Rupert Isaacson: interesting.
• 1:13:18
  Talk to us in layman's terms about this.
• 1:13:22
  Alex Northover: So when you are providing any kind of service, you
• 1:13:25
  obviously have to demonstrate to funders or public bodies that you are.
• 1:13:30
  Doing something that is meaningful because people are you know, funding
• 1:13:34
  attendance somewhere along the line, so we have to measure outcomes for
• 1:13:37
  any type of support or intervention.
• 1:13:40
  But if you have your service users, if you co design your service with your
• 1:13:47
  service users, and your service users are dictating what they found meaningful.
• 1:13:52
  impactful and meaningful from a service from their own perspective
• 1:13:56
  for their own benefit, they can dictate the success criteria.
• 1:14:00
  And that means that the whole service becomes neurodivergent affirming
• 1:14:05
  because you are measuring the things that are of importance to the autistic
• 1:14:09
  people that are attending and not what we neurotypical people may externally
• 1:14:16
  believe to be important to them.
• 1:14:18
  You're, you're, you're.
• 1:14:19
  removing the assumption you're centering the lived experience
• 1:14:23
  as the the person is the expert.
• 1:14:26
  Rupert Isaacson: It's the first time I've ever heard of anyone asking
• 1:14:30
  autistic people what they think.
• 1:14:32
  That's
• 1:14:32
  Alex Northover: not true.
• 1:14:33
  You asked Temple Grandin.
• 1:14:34
  Well, right.
• 1:14:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Outside of me.
• 1:14:37
  And one of the things which I find fascinating about this PhD that
• 1:14:43
  you're doing is that you asked Rowan, you asked Scub, my son
• 1:14:49
  to come in and consult with you.
• 1:14:51
  On what his perception was, is, on equine assisted work, what works for
• 1:15:00
  him, what might not work so well for him and to help you with the study.
• 1:15:05
  And what was so interesting when you did that was I was placed in quite a
• 1:15:10
  vulnerable position because there's Rowan who's grown up with the equine assisted
• 1:15:19
  model that basically, I designed in order to follow him on the recommendation
• 1:15:28
  first of Temple Grandin and then by what he showed me himself worked.
• 1:15:33
  But it was very interesting to, to listen to him
• 1:15:39
  talk about effectively best practice, you know, and then to realize, oh my
• 1:15:44
  gosh, well, you talk about getting rid of ego, you know, know what one needs to
• 1:15:50
  do is, is hear him talk about what he'd like more of what he'd like less of.
• 1:15:55
  Because you know, that's going to inform the next generation
• 1:15:59
  coming up or best practice.
• 1:16:02
  It's amazing that you're doing this within the equine assisted world,
• 1:16:07
  because As you know, equine assisted providers tend to be bossy, horsey people.
• 1:16:18
  And guilty at large, by the way, I'm holding my hand up here.
• 1:16:20
  I mean, horse people have to be de facto a little bit bossy in order to be able
• 1:16:26
  to handle a horse herd because horses themselves are a little bit bossy.
• 1:16:30
  And you know, I mean, it's, we're mirrors and it's kind of a little bit the culture.
• 1:16:34
  So it's, it's a really interesting dance when you have to kind of give up your
• 1:16:38
  bossiness But at the same time, direct that bossiness over there to create,
• 1:16:44
  you know, safety and order and some structure, but at the same time, lose
• 1:16:49
  that bossiness completely in order to listen to the client group, the service
• 1:16:54
  users that now are informing you.
• 1:16:55
  And you talked about the death of the ego.
• 1:16:58
  You talked about the letting go of the ego.
• 1:17:03
  How's that working for you?
• 1:17:05
  I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's a tough dance, right?
• 1:17:07
  I mean.
• 1:17:08
  It
• 1:17:08
  Alex Northover: is.
• 1:17:09
  And I've kind of gone through this.
• 1:17:11
  I have got to the place where.
• 1:17:14
  For the academic work, certainly, I am comfortable with discomfort and I have,
• 1:17:21
  I have gone through kind of, it's a reiterative process, I've gone through
• 1:17:25
  this over and over again and I kind of go through this like spiral of, do I, should
• 1:17:29
  I even be occupying a seat at this table?
• 1:17:32
  Really?
• 1:17:32
  Like, you know, am I, do, should I, as a neurotypical person even
• 1:17:39
  be completing this research at all?
• 1:17:43
  And how do I.
• 1:17:44
  Balance
• 1:17:48
  the fact that the bulk of the benefit from the research comes to me because I
• 1:17:53
  have the scholarship, I have the living stipend, I get the academic qualification,
• 1:17:58
  but also the responsibility for the project rests with me because I've got
• 1:18:04
  to like actually manage it and produce it and deliver something at the same time.
• 1:18:08
  Really wanting to honor the fact that those.
• 1:18:12
  Voices with the lived experience.
• 1:18:14
  My autistic co researchers are the experts in, you know, they are the authorities.
• 1:18:21
  They are the expert voice here and representing them and advocating from
• 1:18:26
  the, for them in academic spaces where they, when, when they're not there as
• 1:18:31
  well, because, you know, it's, it's fairly easy to do in the co research
• 1:18:34
  space where we're working together.
• 1:18:36
  But sometimes I have to go and quite vigorously defend their position to
• 1:18:40
  people that are like more senior than me.
• 1:18:44
  You know, in a way that is quite challenging.
• 1:18:47
  And I think.
• 1:18:51
  Yeah, I, I don't think it's clean.
• 1:18:54
  It is a messy space.
• 1:18:56
  And I think the only way you can navigate that space is by being aware
• 1:18:59
  of that messiness and constantly really interrogating yourself and the way
• 1:19:06
  you're approaching things and your motivations and why you're doing things.
• 1:19:09
  I did a piece of reading by he Epstein, who is an autistic autism researcher,
• 1:19:15
  and she, I read her PhD and she talked about the role of researchers
• 1:19:21
  really reflecting on their own kind of assumptions and biases and, and what they
• 1:19:27
  you know, bring to the table and really.
• 1:19:30
  Being aware of those things so that you can challenge them,
• 1:19:33
  but it isn't it's not straightforward at all
• 1:19:35
  Rupert Isaacson: What what kind of resistance have you encountered from
• 1:19:39
  people more senior to yourself about?
• 1:19:42
  Letting people on the autism spectrum
• 1:19:47
  begin to consult govern dictate how therapeutic practice should go
• 1:19:53
  Alex Northover: It's not really resistance isn't the right word
• 1:19:58
  everybody's very Supportive and like committed to the process it's about
• 1:20:06
  Navigating the governance of research in a, in a field that is quite fluid.
• 1:20:16
  So when you're doing co design, the gold standard of co design
• 1:20:22
  is to have your service users contribute thoroughly, meaningfully,
• 1:20:30
  at every stage in the process.
• 1:20:32
  But that's.
• 1:20:33
  Practically quite difficult to do because you have to go through ethical clearances.
• 1:20:39
  You have to have a degree of things cemented in order to get
• 1:20:44
  the gold stamp, you know, to the.
• 1:20:47
  The green light, if you like, to go through and do the research, which
• 1:20:51
  is right, because it's important that people who are potentially vulnerable are
• 1:20:54
  protected and, you know, all of the kind of legal things done in the correct way.
• 1:21:02
  But those, I've sort of found that those things sit a little
• 1:21:04
  in contrast, and that has been,
• 1:21:10
  again, a tricky space to navigate, because I want to leave as much
• 1:21:16
  opportunity and as much openness and as much fluidity so that Co researchers
• 1:21:20
  can dictate what is happening, but also
• 1:21:26
  allowing the governance things to happen in a way that makes
• 1:21:29
  the projects meaningful and appropriate and safe for everybody.
• 1:21:34
  Rupert Isaacson: What are the, what are the autistic co designers telling you?
• 1:21:42
  What are the main takeaways you're getting at this stage in the study?
• 1:21:47
  Alex Northover: So the, the things that they identified as being kind of,
• 1:21:52
  meaningful to them were not the things that are generally measured in the
• 1:21:58
  scientific literature and in research.
• 1:22:01
  They were more based around wellbeing and that's not something that is
• 1:22:08
  generally used as an outcome measure,
• 1:22:11
  Rupert Isaacson: but other counterintuitive of wellbeing, very
• 1:22:14
  personal, subjective, each one to the other, or is there a pattern
• 1:22:17
  that you can discern across all,
• 1:22:19
  Alex Northover: Too soon to say, I would say so that the way that the research
• 1:22:23
  works is that there is There was , a series of focus groups with my co
• 1:22:27
  researchers, whereby we looked at their experience and , the things that they felt
• 1:22:33
  were important, we sort of talked together about and fed back on each other's
• 1:22:38
  ideas and kind of picked out key themes.
• 1:22:42
  That was the first phase of the research.
• 1:22:43
  The second phase of the research is to take that to a wider audience and
• 1:22:46
  see if there's agreement and what.
• 1:22:50
  Where the priorities lie in a larger population.
• 1:22:53
  So come back this time next year and I'll be able to tell you.
• 1:22:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Give us , a little bit of some trends.
• 1:22:59
  If you're a practitioner, what have you learned since the beginning of
• 1:23:08
  your study that you could say has positively affected your own practice?
• 1:23:17
  Alex Northover: I think recognizing that there is, it's a an ebb and flow
• 1:23:22
  between the person who is coming, the person who is providing, and the horse.
• 1:23:26
  And I think that movement between the three sort of agencies that
• 1:23:32
  are involved in the session is really, really meaningful.
• 1:23:35
  And I think watching watching somebody work with a horse, is revealing
• 1:23:41
  for the service user as well as it is for the service provider.
• 1:23:46
  So in the same way that somebody in a traditional model might be watching how
• 1:23:50
  people interact with the horse to gauge their kind of emotional state, I think
• 1:23:55
  that is happening the other way as well.
• 1:23:58
  And I think you can tell a lot by a person by how they interact with animals and
• 1:24:04
  how they manage challenge and whether or not they get stressed or, you know,
• 1:24:08
  if they're authentic, if they're If the what they're saying matches up with
• 1:24:13
  how they're presenting, that HOST is a great diagnostic tools and I think that
• 1:24:16
  works the other way as it does for the the practitioner watching the client.
• 1:24:20
  I think it also works for the client watching the practitioner too.
• 1:24:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Are we talking about the importance of being able to recognize
• 1:24:29
  symbiosis and what symbiosis is and all the nuances around symbiosis?
• 1:24:33
  Because you're talking about
• 1:24:35
  Alex Northover: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:24:37
  That's tough.
• 1:24:38
  It's a tough thing to answer
• 1:24:40
  I think we have to be careful When you're drawing generalizations to do
• 1:24:44
  it in such a way that doesn't make everybody a monolith because every type
• 1:24:48
  of like a question assisted support comes from a slightly different place
• 1:24:52
  has a slightly different background.
• 1:24:53
  Each practitioner is a different person.
• 1:24:55
  Each horse is a different being.
• 1:24:57
  Each client has a different set of needs and desires.
• 1:25:00
  And it's about how do we tease out the things that are.
• 1:25:04
  uniform across practice and uniform across a service user group in a way
• 1:25:09
  that doesn't diminish or dehumanize or make things too much of a generality.
• 1:25:15
  Because you know there is commonality, but there are also a lot of differences
• 1:25:20
  and we need to kind of, agree as you know a practitioner community
• 1:25:25
  about what we are providing for our service users And what the service
• 1:25:31
  users feel is important for them.
• 1:25:33
  Rupert Isaacson: You're at the cutting edge of moving stuff forward to the
• 1:25:37
  next phase because I think where you differ from me is that I'm a
• 1:25:41
  practitioner, you know, and I'm a, I'm a comer up wither of the world.
• 1:25:48
  methodology perhaps, but you're a measurer.
• 1:25:52
  You're also a practitioner.
• 1:25:53
  You're also innovative.
• 1:25:55
  You're also running everything, but you're also measuring.
• 1:25:58
  So when you measure, you allow the growth of the field because people have
• 1:26:06
  something against which they can measure.
• 1:26:08
  Do you see what I'm saying?
• 1:26:09
  And so it's very, very necessary work.
• 1:26:12
  I think, every single person who's listening to this podcast
• 1:26:16
  who's got an Equine Assisted thing is, is waiting to hear, what can
• 1:26:20
  I do to make what I do better?
• 1:26:25
  Alex Northover: By
• 1:26:26
  engaging your service users in such a way as they co design your service.
• 1:26:30
  So if you are co designing.
• 1:26:33
  is the gold standard for patient care in medical fields.
• 1:26:38
  It's expected if you're doing any kind of medical research that, or, you know, any
• 1:26:43
  kind of designing of delivery of service that you do recruit and engage your
• 1:26:49
  service users, because they are, you know, the people who need to be able to engage
• 1:26:54
  with the model, whatever it happens to be.
• 1:26:56
  So ask, ask the people you're working with what they want
• 1:26:59
  to get out of this experience.
• 1:27:02
  And keep checking in, seek out the mentorship of people who have been
• 1:27:06
  through similar projects, programs, what they found useful, what
• 1:27:11
  they didn't like, speak to them.
• 1:27:14
  So always go back to that perspective because anything any service in
• 1:27:19
  order to be meaningful has to produce a change in the service user.
• 1:27:23
  It has to, be impactful in that person's life in a productive way.
• 1:27:28
  So if you go back and speak to those people and, you know, really embrace their
• 1:27:34
  input into every aspect of your service.
• 1:27:38
  So if you're going to send out paperwork for somebody who is autistic or has a
• 1:27:44
  learning difficulty or you know, some kind of cognitive difference, have source
• 1:27:50
  people who have those needs and ask them to proofread your intake sheets.
• 1:27:55
  Ask them to look at your website, ask people with dyslexia if they
• 1:27:59
  can read the font on your website.
• 1:28:00
  Like engage, engage your service users and that is the route to meaningful provision.
• 1:28:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Get mentorship from the very people that you provide service for.
• 1:28:11
  Alex Northover: Yes.
• 1:28:13
  Yeah, make no assumptions.
• 1:28:15
  Rupert Isaacson: That makes perfect sense to me.
• 1:28:16
  What's interesting is that that's not the norm, but I do think that with studies
• 1:28:23
  like yours it can help to become the norm because there are lots of very,
• 1:28:29
  very good practitioners out there who are doing exactly what you just said.
• 1:28:34
  And at the same time, perhaps they're facing some opposition
• 1:28:39
  on this, whether it's societal, whether it's academic, whether it's
• 1:28:44
  authoritative, you know, local.
• 1:28:46
  authority saying, you know, no, it's got to be a top down thing.
• 1:28:51
  And also one has to be able to dance the dance where you can talk in a
• 1:28:55
  way that makes it sound like it's sufficiently top down that they'll
• 1:28:59
  fund you because that's still
• 1:29:02
  Often want to hear.
• 1:29:04
  In particularly, you know, I know this is true in the U.
• 1:29:07
  S.
• 1:29:08
  for example.
• 1:29:09
  While at the same time, absolutely doing what you're, you're saying to
• 1:29:14
  do, which leads me to the next thing.
• 1:29:17
  You are now an authority on this Alex.
• 1:29:21
  And how can people come and learn from you?
• 1:29:24
  If I had been starting out now, and I was listening to this podcast, I
• 1:29:32
  think, Shit, you know, I, I, I want to learn from this Alex person.
• 1:29:35
  I want this Alex person to show me how to set up my thing.
• 1:29:39
  I want to consult with her.
• 1:29:41
  I want to learn from her.
• 1:29:41
  I want to be trained by her.
• 1:29:42
  I want to be mentored by her.
• 1:29:43
  Are you offering that?
• 1:29:45
  can people contact you?
• 1:29:47
  How would that work?
• 1:29:49
  Do you train?
• 1:29:49
  What, what do you do?
• 1:29:50
  Alex Northover: Yeah, very, very happy to keep the conversation going.
• 1:29:55
  So yeah, people are very welcome to contact me.
• 1:29:57
  Contact me and, and, you know, or come and we deliver training.
• 1:30:01
  So, obviously, we do the movement method and the horseboy method
• 1:30:05
  and the TI provision training I deliver training in schools.
• 1:30:09
  But, you know, if you have specific questions, you're very welcome to, I
• 1:30:12
  will always do my best to answer them.
• 1:30:14
  Or if I can't answer them, I can usually.
• 1:30:17
  Direct you to somebody who can but I think that, you know, this is obviously
• 1:30:20
  international finding, finding a mentor for you, who is familiar with
• 1:30:28
  how things work in your country of delivery or your state of delivery is
• 1:30:32
  also really important because there are nuances and differences to do with you
• 1:30:36
  know, policy and geographical location and all of those types of things.
• 1:30:40
  So, you know, some things are general and applicable anywhere, but some
• 1:30:45
  things you need specific local understanding and knowledge as well.
• 1:30:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Where do you want to see your practice go in the foreseeable?
• 1:30:55
  Let's go five years, 10 years.
• 1:30:57
  And where do you want to see the field go?
• 1:30:59
  Alex Northover: I think I, anybody who is in this space.
• 1:31:02
  can see that there is kind of a collective understanding of the fact
• 1:31:05
  that we need to, as a, a field produce some clarity of understanding about
• 1:31:12
  what it is that everybody offers.
• 1:31:14
  So, you know, I, I don't describe what we offer as an equine therapy
• 1:31:20
  because I am not a therapist.
• 1:31:22
  And, you know, I think it's right and important that we're clear on
• 1:31:25
  our language and create a clear set of shared understanding.
• 1:31:28
  Right, and
• 1:31:29
  Rupert Isaacson: something could be therapeutic without being a therapy.
• 1:31:30
  Alex Northover: Being a therapy.
• 1:31:31
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:31:32
  And so, you know, having that, but making sure that people understand that
• 1:31:37
  and having that shared understanding about what it is that we are able to
• 1:31:41
  deliver, what it is that we are providing and what they can expect from us.
• 1:31:46
  And I think that is something that I see reflected within the field the
• 1:31:50
  larger field and kind of an increasing formalization of what is equine assisted
• 1:31:56
  therapy, what is equine facilitated learning, what are the sort of qualities
• 1:32:02
  qualifications and you know, methodologies behind those services, but I think
• 1:32:08
  there should also be a space for there is so much good work happening from
• 1:32:13
  so many different kind of approaches.
• 1:32:17
  So many different backgrounds.
• 1:32:19
  So many different, methodologies, I think, finding a way where we can formalize
• 1:32:23
  stuff without stifling that creativity and without that, without removing
• 1:32:29
  people's capacity to have innovation and be unique, I think is really important.
• 1:32:33
  Because there are, there is such huge diverse needs for so many different
• 1:32:40
  reasons that it is right and proper that services don't all do the same thing.
• 1:32:45
  Because.
• 1:32:46
  What people find from each individual service is, is different.
• 1:32:51
  What people take from each individual service is different.
• 1:32:54
  And if we over formalize and make it formulaic, I think
• 1:33:00
  some of that, that is lost.
• 1:33:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Do you think that every equine assisted place, gig, practice
• 1:33:08
  should do a number of methodologies?
• 1:33:12
  Not just, not just horseplay or regala or Do you think there should, as much
• 1:33:18
  as possible, be a cross fertilization?
• 1:33:22
  Alex Northover: I think we should develop uniformity in terms of the, there needs to
• 1:33:26
  be some things that we're all doing with regards to safeguarding health and safety,
• 1:33:31
  you know, that, that making sure that clients are comfortable and safe within
• 1:33:35
  a space and, and meeting those needs.
• 1:33:37
  I think there's also things that we should all be doing around animal equine
• 1:33:41
  welfare and well being and honoring horses as our partners in this endeavor
• 1:33:45
  that are really, really important.
• 1:33:47
  But I think that Everybody who comes into these fields comes with their own passion
• 1:33:52
  and purpose, and it's important that they sense that and honor that because those
• 1:33:56
  are the things that they do really well.
• 1:33:58
  And that is what gives longevity and spark to your provision.
• 1:34:03
  So if you are super, super passionate about one modality, or if you are super
• 1:34:08
  passionate about groundwork, or, you know, observing the horses in a natural
• 1:34:13
  space, or, producing, you know, doing written work, mounted work, whatever it
• 1:34:18
  is, everybody's got, you know, liberty training, whatever it is that you're
• 1:34:21
  doing should be the thing that feeds your soul as well, because that's what
• 1:34:24
  allows you to provide service for others.
• 1:34:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Most young people that might need to access your service.
• 1:34:35
  A service like yours don't live where you are.
• 1:34:39
  They don't live in the country.
• 1:34:41
  They don't have access to horses, animals, nature
• 1:34:44
  in your perfect world.
• 1:34:46
  How do you begin to answer that need?
• 1:34:50
  You're not far from Manchester, but Manchester is a big amorphous,
• 1:34:57
  scary conurbation with areas that.
• 1:35:02
  people, they're not going to see horses in nature and stuff.
• 1:35:07
  And those are probably where the young people are with the greatest need.
• 1:35:11
  In your perfect world, how would you have those people, those young people from
• 1:35:16
  those places, access services like yours?
• 1:35:19
  I
• 1:35:21
  Alex Northover: think it's about dissemination of knowledge.
• 1:35:23
  So, I think there is definitely an understanding that there is need.
• 1:35:27
  There is definitely a awareness that we need to meet need, Then schools and
• 1:35:35
  practitioners maybe don't know where to go with that, don't know how to address it.
• 1:35:39
  So I think making training sort of more widely available so that some of
• 1:35:43
  these approaches and techniques can be applied in more mainstream or urban
• 1:35:48
  settings, bringing that ethos into those places, I think would be really useful.
• 1:35:51
  Does that mean putting
• 1:35:52
  Rupert Isaacson: your horses in a trailer and taking them into a school?
• 1:35:55
  Or does that mean training people in those schools to have nature?
• 1:36:00
  and interaction with nature, even in within a classroom or
• 1:36:03
  so like, what does that mean?
• 1:36:04
  Alex Northover: I think the latter.
• 1:36:05
  So, you know, as much as it is lovely to be able to drop in
• 1:36:09
  and provide that experience.
• 1:36:10
  And I think that is very meaningful.
• 1:36:12
  The, the thing that has the biggest impact is the small day to day changes.
• 1:36:16
  So if, if everybody could introduce some aspects of allowing for regulatory
• 1:36:24
  movement and removing negative sensory triggers and loading up positive sensitive
• 1:36:29
  triggers into their spaces, those small the cumulative effect of those
• 1:36:35
  many small changes would be absolutely enormous for so many young people.
• 1:36:40
  Well, every young person that moves through that space and I think that is
• 1:36:44
  the The most meaningful thing we could do at this time is to share that knowledge
• 1:36:51
  and furnish people from outside of this field with those tools and that skill set.
• 1:36:59
  Rupert Isaacson: That sounds like basically bringing nature into schools.
• 1:37:01
  Why is nature so important?
• 1:37:03
  Alex Northover: So it is the environment we are evolved to be in
• 1:37:07
  we weren't evolved to be in concrete cubes with artificial lighting and
• 1:37:14
  you know, the the more in front
• 1:37:15
  Rupert Isaacson: of a computer actually, I think I was born
• 1:37:18
  Alex Northover: Yeah, the more the more that you can allow young people and
• 1:37:25
  not just young people, staff as well.
• 1:37:27
  You know, the more time you can spend in an environment that meets
• 1:37:31
  your sensory needs and allows for regulation, the better you will do.
• 1:37:34
  The more accessible learning is, the more you are in that you know, calm
• 1:37:40
  regulated learning space that allows you to accumulate knowledge or memory.
• 1:37:46
  Access executive functioning and emotional regulation and all of that.
• 1:37:49
  All of those things that we need in order to be not only successful academic
• 1:37:54
  learners, but you know, human beings.
• 1:37:58
  Rupert Isaacson: We're organisms.
• 1:38:00
  We're designed for planet Earth.
• 1:38:01
  And a lot of the time we're living in some artificialized version of
• 1:38:06
  planet Earth, which causes us stress and makes our brains go squiffy.
• 1:38:10
  Got it.
• 1:38:11
  Here's my final question.
• 1:38:13
  You've got a parent, you've got a teacher, and they brought their young
• 1:38:19
  person or people out to your place.
• 1:38:23
  And now you're going to send them home or back to the classroom with some tips
• 1:38:30
  on how to keep going the good things that they find it yours at theirs.
• 1:38:38
  Break me down like three, five, whatever, what would be
• 1:38:44
  the things that you would say?
• 1:38:46
  If you do these things, you're going to continue to see positive outcomes.
• 1:38:50
  And if you don't do them, you kind of won't.
• 1:38:53
  Alex Northover: I think keeping in mind the shared endeavor, the
• 1:38:57
  purpose of what you're doing.
• 1:39:00
  So the purpose of what we're doing within the education system
• 1:39:03
  is , allowing people, young people to go on to the next step successfully.
• 1:39:07
  Now, while the acquisition of academic success is important to that, if it comes
• 1:39:12
  at the cost of the individual's well being and functioning capacity, it doesn't
• 1:39:18
  matter how many A levels you've got if you can't, if you've become so shut down
• 1:39:22
  that you're unable to leave your home.
• 1:39:24
  Like that, that becomes a meaningless pursuit.
• 1:39:28
  So I think shifting the focus back onto the purpose of
• 1:39:32
  education, which is producing.
• 1:39:35
  you know, a functioning, well adjusted, comfortable, happy member of society.
• 1:39:41
  That's, that's what you're there for.
• 1:39:43
  And, and recognizing that that can look like a lot of different things.
• 1:39:49
  So allowing for individual passions and strengths and approaches to
• 1:39:56
  working and problem solving and all of those things to be equally respected
• 1:40:02
  and regarded is really important.
• 1:40:05
  Rupert Isaacson: That problem solving thing sounds like BDNF to me, which is,
• 1:40:08
  yeah, brain derived neurotrophic factor.
• 1:40:10
  Yeah, neuroplasticity.
• 1:40:10
  Alex Northover: Yeah,
• 1:40:11
  Rupert Isaacson: right neuroplasticity So the parent goes away and you say
• 1:40:16
  do these three things and you'll get neuroplasticity in your house
• 1:40:19
  Alex Northover: What
• 1:40:20
  Rupert Isaacson: are they?
• 1:40:21
  Alex Northover: Move movement.
• 1:40:23
  So allow for everything to be experiential hands on real world learning.
• 1:40:29
  You can deliver any academic content through experiential
• 1:40:32
  hands on real world learning.
• 1:40:34
  If you want them to learn about pivots, moments, build a trebuchet.
• 1:40:39
  And while you're doing that, you can talk about concentric castles and sieges.
• 1:40:43
  So you can do history and physics in one go.
• 1:40:46
  And also think, reflect back onto the stuff that was
• 1:40:49
  meaningful for you as a learner.
• 1:40:52
  If you really think about it, and stuff that stuck, and what inspired
• 1:40:56
  passion in you, whatever those passions were, what did that look like for
• 1:41:00
  you, and, and how can you reproduce those experiences for your child
• 1:41:05
  or the young people you work with?
• 1:41:07
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm going to play devil's advocate.
• 1:41:09
  I can't even think about that Alex, because my kid's just going nuts at
• 1:41:12
  home, and I just want to medicate him because it'll make life easier for me.
• 1:41:16
  And they're just exploding all over the house, wrecking the furniture.
• 1:41:20
  What do I do?
• 1:41:22
  Alex Northover: I think medication is really important for a lot
• 1:41:25
  of people for a lot of reasons.
• 1:41:26
  I think that it can be really life changing, but it shouldn't be your first
• 1:41:31
  port of call and it certainly shouldn't be the only solution to somebody's struggles.
• 1:41:37
  So, if you, if your child But what am I going
• 1:41:39
  Rupert Isaacson: to do then?
• 1:41:40
  Kids going, bananas and nuts, what am I, what am I going to do?
• 1:41:44
  Alex Northover: Get them outside.
• 1:41:45
  . Rupert Isaacson: So the parent says, I can't go outside.
• 1:41:49
  I don't want to go outside for bazillion reasons.
• 1:41:53
  I'm in lockdown and the kid's going crazy.
• 1:41:57
  And what can I do?
• 1:42:01
  . Alex Northover: At that point, the child is communicating a need and their primary
• 1:42:05
  need in that moment is sensory input.
• 1:42:08
  So if your child is It's going wild.
• 1:42:11
  You need to meet that demand.
• 1:42:12
  You need to meet that sensory need in whatever way that child is asking for.
• 1:42:19
  So that might be that you provide movement opportunities like trampolines or indoor
• 1:42:24
  swings or peanut balls or climbing
• 1:42:28
  Rupert Isaacson: frame from the wall or something.
• 1:42:30
  Alex Northover: All of those types of things.
• 1:42:31
  So in that moment, in that headspace the primary need is
• 1:42:36
  connection of the brain and body.
• 1:42:37
  So you have to meet that need first before you can do anything else.
• 1:42:40
  At that point, the child is not open to rationalization or a conversation
• 1:42:46
  or a punishment or reward or anything.
• 1:42:49
  They're completely driven by that sensory input need.
• 1:42:52
  So meet that first.
• 1:42:54
  and then everything else comes second.
• 1:42:56
  Rupert Isaacson: So let them move, let them move, figure
• 1:42:59
  out ways to let them move.
• 1:43:01
  Alex Northover: Yes.
• 1:43:01
  And then that, that buildup of energy tension will dissipate and then you will
• 1:43:07
  have the BDNF and the brain space that allows the, the access to the other,
• 1:43:15
  you know, rational parts of the brain.
• 1:43:17
  And if you try and approach that first you will struggle.
• 1:43:22
  Because even if the child really wants to comply and sit still
• 1:43:26
  and take it in, they'll only be concentrating on sitting still.
• 1:43:29
  They won't actually be receiving whatever information it is that
• 1:43:31
  you're trying to give them.
• 1:43:33
  Need to be able to re regulate it in a regulated space first.
• 1:43:36
  So move, move, move, move.
• 1:43:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Move, move, move.
• 1:43:39
  Love it.
• 1:43:41
  Okay, Alex, thank you so much for coming on Equine Assisted World.
• 1:43:46
  Before we go, Please tell people how they can reach you, websites, emails, etc.
• 1:43:51
  Alex Northover: Okay, so you can use our work email, which
• 1:43:54
  is makingmomentumatoutlook.
• 1:43:57
  com
• 1:44:01
  makingmomentumatoutlook.
• 1:44:01
  com And yeah, feel free to contact us through that or through, if
• 1:44:07
  you search for makingmomentum.
• 1:44:08
  com Cheshire, you will find our Facebook and Instagram social media pages.
• 1:44:14
  You can Making
• 1:44:14
  Rupert Isaacson: momentum Cheshire.
• 1:44:16
  Alex Northover: Yes.
• 1:44:17
  If you search that, it'll come up and you'll see you'll,
• 1:44:19
  you'll see where we are.
• 1:44:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Listen, Alex, thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:44:24
  You're a master of the arts.
• 1:44:25
  It's an honor to have you on.
• 1:44:28
  Alex Northover: Well, thank you very much for having me..
• 1:44:29
  Rupert Isaacson: thank you for joining us.
• 1:44:30
  We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
• 1:44:33
  Join our website, new trails learning.com, to check out our online
• 1:44:38
  courses and live workshops in Horse Boy Method, movement Method, and Athena.
• 1:44:43
  These evidence-based programs have helped children, veterans, and people
• 1:44:48
  dealing with trauma around the world.
• 1:44:50
  We also offer a horse training program and self-care program
• 1:44:54
  for riders on long ride home.com.
• 1:44:58
  These include easy to do online courses and tutorials that
• 1:45:02
  bring you and your horse joy.
• 1:45:04
  For an overview of all shows and programs, go to rupert isaacson.com.
• 1:45:09
  See you on the next show.
• 1:45:10
  And please remember to press, subscribe and share.