Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Ep 10: Nina Ekholm Fry - Denver University

Transcript

Ep 10: Nina Ekholm Fry - Denver University · 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.
• 0:07
  Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
• 0:11
  You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
• 0:16
  Here on Equine Assisted World.
• 0:18
  We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and,
• 0:23
  established in the equine assisted field.
• 0:27
  This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be
• 0:33
  physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have.
• 0:38
  These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
• 0:43
  Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show
• 0:47
  Welcome back to Equine Assisted World where we look at people
• 0:50
  who are at the cutting edge of this rapidly expanding field.
• 0:57
  Today, I've got someone exciting.
• 1:00
  We know we always have someone exciting.
• 1:02
  So this person's no less exciting.
• 1:06
  She's actually extremely exciting.
• 1:07
  Her name is Nina Ekholm Frey.
• 1:09
  Some of you will already know her from the work she's done
• 1:13
  at the University of Colorado.
• 1:15
  Rather pioneering work she can let her tell us about.
• 1:19
  Some of you may also know her from the organization Hetty.
• 1:23
  And if you don't know what Hetty is, you will after this podcast.
• 1:27
  And but she has a much more interesting background than just equine assisted work
• 1:32
  and the study of it and human and animal communication, connectivity relationship.
• 1:40
  So without further ado welcome on, Nina.
• 1:46
  And who are you exactly?
• 1:49
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Hi there.
• 1:50
  Super great to be here.
• 1:52
  Who am I?
• 1:53
  I'm Swedish speaking Finn who's known you, Rupert, for quite some time.
• 1:58
  Thank you.
• 1:59
  That's that's where I wanna start.
• 2:01
  But as you said, some folks may be familiar, maybe not.
• 2:06
  I work at University of Denver here in Colorado in the US of a, but,
• 2:12
  again, I'm from Europe originally.
• 2:15
  And at University of Denver, we have an institute for human animal
• 2:18
  connection where we do research as well as professional development when
• 2:23
  it comes to people's interests in in interactions with all kinds of animals.
• 2:28
  But I work a lot with horses.
• 2:31
  And that's also, of course, how me and and Rupert and everyone over at Horse
• 2:36
  Boy 2 how we got to know each other.
• 2:39
  So I think I'll I'll I'll kind of start there with my
• 2:43
  Rupert Isaacson: with my Well, let's let's just rewind a little bit.
• 2:45
  Of course, yes.
• 2:46
  You and I are old mates.
• 2:48
  However, most people listening are not familiar with that crucial
• 2:54
  piece of background that you gave, a Swedish speaking Finn.
• 2:58
  Tell us about that.
• 2:59
  Tell us about that culture and how that culture has maybe
• 3:03
  informed your career path.
• 3:05
  Is is it something very specific within Europe?
• 3:09
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 3:09
  So, yeah, Swedish speaking Finns or if we're using a Swedish speaking
• 3:16
  Finn word mean it simply means that in Finland, we have 2 official languages,
• 3:21
  and there's a minority, a language and ethnic minority who lives in Finland who
• 3:25
  speak Swedish as their first language and also have sort of a specific
• 3:31
  cultural identity as part of Finland.
• 3:33
  And it's it's a very good question you ask about how it's influenced me or kind
• 3:39
  of impacted me because when you grow up obviously, I'm a or I shouldn't say
• 3:44
  obviously, but I am a black white person.
• 3:47
  I'm a white woman from Northern Europe, and the Swedish speaking
• 3:50
  Finns are predominantly white.
• 3:53
  But there's still a minority within Finland, a white minority.
• 3:58
  And so growing up in a minority status, But I grew up in a what's called
• 4:03
  a majority minority area, simply meaning that in my village and in my
• 4:09
  county, we were predominantly Finland Svenskaar or Swedish speaking Finns.
• 4:16
  So my immediate experience and my village was about, you know, 200 people or so.
• 4:23
  My immediate experience was really connected to my
• 4:27
  ethnic and language identity.
• 4:29
  But the but the larger sort of area of I'm from the West Coast of Finland, It
• 4:36
  was a it was a particular experience to start noticing things like identities and
• 4:41
  power and and differences like that even early on, even before venturing out into
• 4:47
  Europe, before venturing out into the rest of the world and other continents, and
• 4:52
  then eventually ending up here in the US.
• 4:55
  Rupert Isaacson: So, um, this minority experience I know from your previous
• 5:03
  to being an academic life, led you into some interesting human rights work.
• 5:07
  Can you tell us a little bit about that?
• 5:09
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 5:10
  I mean, I I think in some ways, it is a human rights work to become
• 5:15
  a mental health practitioner, to become a psychologist, to become
• 5:19
  interested in in the human mind.
• 5:23
  And so I wouldn't say other than my my overall experience of understanding
• 5:30
  power and privilege in a much deeper way than I did initially when I grew up.
• 5:36
  I didn't have parents or context where people were quite
• 5:41
  aware of equity and inequity.
• 5:44
  But I started seeing it, and I saw it actually very early on in my
• 5:51
  village when a Finnish Roma family wanted to visit 1 of the stables,
• 5:56
  but they weren't truly welcome.
• 5:59
  But because of my status in the village and because of my whiteness and
• 6:04
  because of my knowing this very small village, I was able to escort them.
• 6:09
  I was able to assume or use, wield, you know, my privilege to help them access,
• 6:16
  you know, what they were interested in visiting horses because horses are part
• 6:20
  of of of the Finnish Roma culture as well.
• 6:23
  So those were some early things, you know, around around my interest in in in, yeah,
• 6:32
  areas of privilege and power and equity, which after moving to the US became quite
• 6:38
  a quite a lived experience, you know, as an immigrant, as a as a woman and very fem
• 6:44
  presenting woman living in a in a whole new place, in a more multicultural place
• 6:50
  than the fairly monocultural homogeneous experience I had growing up, but being
• 6:56
  a minority population, but still.
• 6:59
  So I think some of my interest later on as well in thinking of
• 7:05
  just horses and humans and working now in a school of social work.
• 7:11
  The these things have really informed me in speaking more on or being more
• 7:16
  interested in things like power.
• 7:19
  Rupert Isaacson: So before you came over to the USA you pursued, obviously,
• 7:23
  your early career there in Finland.
• 7:25
  What did you do between leaving school?
• 7:29
  Obviously, you're a horsey girl.
• 7:30
  You're living in this very beautiful, very nature rich part of the world.
• 7:37
  But then what what do you do where where do you go for your working life?
• 7:39
  Do you go to the city?
• 7:41
  What happens?
• 7:43
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
• 7:44
  So I started actually at the very end of my degree.
• 7:48
  Again, I'm a psychologist working for the Red Cross.
• 7:52
  So I worked for it's called the Western District Red Cross.
• 7:55
  So not as a volunteer, but as a but as a staff member and engaged mostly in
• 8:01
  crisis work within the country of Finland.
• 8:03
  So this wasn't international international crisis work.
• 8:07
  We did we did have 2 unfortunate school shootings, which is very, very
• 8:12
  unusual for Finland, but both happened during my tenure with the Red Cross.
• 8:17
  1 of them in our neighboring district, which meant that we went there.
• 8:21
  Our our staff went there.
• 8:23
  So I worked for the Red Cross for a while.
• 8:26
  They're overlapping kind of toward my graduation.
• 8:29
  I also worked for a couple of organizations for mental health, so
• 8:33
  related to mental health in general, but I also work for organizations specific
• 8:37
  to folks who are autistic and folks with ADHD, which started kind of, another
• 8:43
  connection point that we have here Rupert.
• 8:46
  But but those were some of my early sort of mental health related work.
• 8:52
  And then eventually, I ended up back at my alma mater, the old
• 8:55
  university where I had graduated from.
• 8:58
  So it was there that I was working still pretty early career in my twenties when
• 9:05
  all of a sudden, there was a a note or I can't did I get an email about this?
• 9:10
  Some somehow somebody said, hey.
• 9:12
  They're looking for a faculty member, an associate professor position in America
• 9:18
  in at Prescott College in Arizona.
• 9:20
  You know, applying for that even though I quite liked the the
• 9:25
  position I had at my old university.
• 9:27
  But that really started that's when things really started rolling, let's say.
• 9:33
  Rupert Isaacson: So you you applied for this job sort of out of the blue partly
• 9:37
  from a sense of adventure, I I presume.
• 9:41
  You get the job.
• 9:43
  That seems, by itself somewhat of a tall order.
• 9:48
  There must have been, you know, loads of people applying for that job.
• 9:51
  Yet you get it.
• 9:54
  And you come to America fresh off the boat, land in the desert.
• 9:59
  What do you come there to do at the University of Prescott?
• 10:04
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 10:04
  So and the the position itself, the reason why I sought it was, again, not because
• 10:09
  I was unhappy where I was necessarily, but because at the time, this is sadly
• 10:15
  not the case any longer, but at the time, Prescott College was well, it
• 10:20
  was I mean, I guess it's still known as this, but it was known as having some
• 10:24
  early, at least experiential learning things with horses kind of Right.
• 10:28
  An innovative in institution that was born out of some sort of Harvard
• 10:33
  Business School experiment about the school of the future, and and they
• 10:38
  were again, founded in the sixties, so not a very old institution.
• 10:42
  But the reason why I applied for that job was because they were asking
• 10:47
  for somebody to come and develop a concentration for the masters of
• 10:51
  counseling students in in the inclusion of horses in mental health, so that the
• 10:57
  the counseling students who are getting their masters and to become licensed
• 11:01
  mental health counselors would then be able to study or add this concentration.
• 11:04
  They already had art therapy and So that's really what I what I applied for.
• 11:16
  That's that's what took me away, so to speak, from from where I was working at
• 11:22
  the time, and I had I had traveled, and I had lived in a couple of different
• 11:25
  places also earlier on, but but that's what I came to do to to to formalize
• 11:33
  some of the activities in the past few years there at Prescott College.
• 11:38
  Yeah.
• 11:39
  Okay.
• 11:39
  Rupert Isaacson: And then you arrive not knowing much about the USA except just
• 11:48
  looking at it from the outside, and you dive right into the college system there.
• 11:52
  And and, also, Prescott is an interesting town because it's
• 11:56
  there in the Arizona desert.
• 11:57
  It's those of you who who know it, it's north of it's of Phoenix,
• 12:03
  between Phoenix and Flagstaff.
• 12:05
  It's sort of as you begin to go up towards the higher country, and
• 12:09
  it seems to be sort of equal parts liberal college town, a little bit
• 12:15
  like, say, Boulder or somewhere, and equal parts Redneck Arizona.
• 12:21
  And that must have been quite a cultural jump.
• 12:25
  How did you find it?
• 12:27
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Certainly was.
• 12:28
  And I had spent time in the US prior, but only as a visitor.
• 12:33
  You know?
• 12:33
  So you can only get so much of a sense of a place.
• 12:37
  And I had been to the southwest, you know, the similar landscape.
• 12:42
  But something about the desert, which is the opposite, you could say, opposite
• 12:47
  climate of Finland in so many ways.
• 12:50
  Finland's, you know, north and humid, and we're talking desert here.
• 12:54
  It burned into my soul, the desert landscape, into my mind
• 12:59
  and soul in a very profound way.
• 13:03
  I just because I my my feeling was very much I have left this position
• 13:09
  that I had in Finland, which wasn't you know, I did do pros and cons lists,
• 13:15
  but it wasn't, you know, the most terrifying thing necessarily I had done.
• 13:20
  It was like, okay.
• 13:21
  Well, if you are hiring me for this job, then I surely will come kind of thing.
• 13:27
  But but when I so when I arrived, I knew I sort of had told myself, look.
• 13:32
  You're gonna like this place.
• 13:34
  And I had I had visited 1 time after being accepted or accepted
• 13:40
  after being employed, offered a contract, and while I was waiting for
• 13:45
  immigration status to be resolved.
• 13:47
  So I had visited before once before I actually moved there.
• 13:50
  Physically, those 2 suitcases showed up there.
• 13:55
  But and I knew I told myself, look.
• 13:57
  You're gonna like it, you know, because this is where this kinda
• 14:00
  cool job is, and and you know, why why wouldn't you like it?
• 14:04
  And I just arrived into this small town.
• 14:09
  Yes.
• 14:09
  It's north of Phoenix.
• 14:10
  It's pretty small community.
• 14:12
  It's pretty eclectic.
• 14:13
  Mhmm.
• 14:14
  It's specific.
• 14:16
  It has a very almost insular culture to it due to the way that the mountains
• 14:22
  rise because it's a mile high city.
• 14:24
  So you're gonna drive up from Phoenix, you rise about 3000 feet, and you
• 14:28
  end up in this little it's not a mountain town, but it's high desert.
• 14:33
  Yeah.
• 14:34
  And it feels very place based.
• 14:37
  It feels very contained.
• 14:39
  It was not it was completely different, of course, than my village
• 14:43
  and the city I grew up near, but it was also not an urban metropolis.
• 14:49
  Right.
• 14:51
  It had very strong land connection.
• 14:53
  That's how I felt when I arrived, and I felt at
• 14:56
  Rupert Isaacson: home.
• 14:57
  And then what did you you you then began to move towards the work that you're doing
• 15:04
  now while you were there at Prescott.
• 15:07
  You began to organize very interesting events in congresses there.
• 15:12
  Can you just tell us about the work that you did there, and then that'll
• 15:16
  be give us a way to jump into the work you're doing now at Denver?
• 15:20
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
• 15:20
  Yes.
• 15:21
  So, again, I arrived with a task to sort of solidify what had happened there.
• 15:28
  And I, of course, also arrived with quest to know what is
• 15:33
  happening here in the States.
• 15:34
  I mean, at that time, yes, there were emails and slow Internet browsers, but
• 15:40
  it wasn't like now where you could just get people on the on the phone, you
• 15:46
  know, or or chat or message with people.
• 15:49
  I had some contacts, but my main quest was literally to see what is
• 15:55
  going on here when they were talking about horses, and we're talking about
• 15:59
  therapy and especially psychotherapy.
• 16:02
  So my my early years, I was there for 5 years, were really,
• 16:07
  really focused on networking.
• 16:10
  We're really focused on bringing people together.
• 16:12
  As you mentioned, I organized some large large events and, of course, running the
• 16:18
  the concentration within the master's program there for students bringing in
• 16:24
  speakers, and and, you know, I've had you there too for some of our both our
• 16:28
  undergrad and our graduate students.
• 16:31
  So I spent several years basically trying to get to know as many people
• 16:37
  as possible and as much about the context of the United States and equine
• 16:44
  interactions and therapies since I had some of that coming from from Europe.
• 16:48
  But here, we had a completely new landscape.
• 16:51
  And I could also add, I also spent some earnest time trying to understand what
• 16:56
  these, you know, natural horsemanship dudes in the west were talking about.
• 17:01
  I had some experience, you know, of course, being classically trained,
• 17:05
  classical equitation in Europe.
• 17:07
  But I I gave it a really good shot when they were running horses around and around
• 17:13
  pens, and they were doing stuff like that.
• 17:15
  And I earnestly was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to understand what you
• 17:19
  all are talking about, but really found that that a lot of it wasn't
• 17:24
  science aligned or it wasn't for me.
• 17:26
  So I did spend a lot of time in the sort of on the horse side only as well.
• 17:32
  Rupert Isaacson: And what had you been involved in the equine assisted
• 17:35
  work in Finland before you came Yes.
• 17:38
  To the US.
• 17:39
  Okay.
• 17:39
  Tell us about that and and and, yeah, you're the background
• 17:42
  Nina Ekholm Fry: there.
• 17:44
  Yeah.
• 17:45
  Both practically as in providing services and including horses, but
• 17:49
  also toward the end of my time there.
• 17:52
  Again, again, I was then by then into my mid twenties, I had started
• 17:56
  to become nationally involved.
• 17:58
  So I was a vice president of 1 of the national organizations there, and we
• 18:02
  were working on sort of a couple of initiatives meaning that I've started
• 18:06
  to do some of the work that I am doing quite a bit now too, which is not only,
• 18:14
  you know, boots on the ground kind of experiences or practical experiences,
• 18:19
  but also trying to, uh, positively influence things like guidelines or
• 18:25
  or larger systems where possible.
• 18:29
  Rupert Isaacson: So the the work you did when you were providing services
• 18:31
  in Finland, was that sort of classic therapeutic riding or adaptive riding?
• 18:37
  Was that more the equine assisted psychotherapy direction?
• 18:40
  What how are you doing it?
• 18:42
  What was the what was the menu you were offering
• 18:45
  Nina Ekholm Fry: there?
• 18:46
  Yeah.
• 18:47
  Not really adaptive riding.
• 18:49
  I actually became an adaptive riding instructor after I came to the US which
• 18:54
  I, you know, made sure I kind of got to understand what they're doing there.
• 18:58
  I was familiar with that area.
• 19:00
  It's called something else in in Finland, but no the inclusion
• 19:04
  of horses in human services.
• 19:06
  So, both, you know, psychotherapy services and also what we call more supportive
• 19:11
  services was what I was doing there.
• 19:13
  So with autistic kids, so families with autistic family members, more so
• 19:19
  what we'd call supportive services.
• 19:21
  It's a little more like what I've also had the opportunity to work with you
• 19:25
  and New Trails about more that kind of thing, but also and separate from that
• 19:30
  with other clientele, you know, use of psychotherapy as the treatment and
• 19:36
  then the including of the horse Right.
• 19:39
  In each path process.
• 19:40
  So so it's a little bit of of of, again, more learning, more supportive
• 19:45
  service as well as health care service.
• 19:48
  Okay.
• 19:49
  Rupert Isaacson: And then you arrive, obviously, in this
• 19:51
  academic role in Prescott.
• 19:54
  Do you start also offering services there?
• 19:59
  And, also, you say you you start getting to know as many
• 20:02
  people in the field as you can.
• 20:04
  What are the main differences that you found between the approaches the
• 20:08
  Equinixis approaches in Europe to yeah.
• 20:11
  What struck you?
• 20:12
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 20:13
  Yeah.
• 20:13
  No.
• 20:14
  And and and this is a topic that that you and I also know quite a bit about.
• 20:18
  When you come to a new country as an immigrant, takes a while for
• 20:22
  you to get certain permissions to do certain kinds of work.
• 20:27
  So, yes, when I first arrived, I I didn't have the status to allow me
• 20:32
  to do multiple to, you know, work for multiple employers, basically,
• 20:36
  or to even have my own business yet.
• 20:38
  Right.
• 20:39
  That took several years before I was able to.
• 20:42
  And when I was able to, I was then able to provide psychotherapy primarily in
• 20:47
  the residential treatment settings where clients would come for typically longer
• 20:53
  term treatment primarily co occurring trauma and addiction or co occurring
• 20:59
  trauma and there, also in in Arizona.
• 21:06
  But much later on there also in in Arizona, but much later on
• 21:11
  than those initial years due to due to immigration restrictions.
• 21:16
  But the, yes, the differences were in terms of you're asking the differences
• 21:22
  between, you know, how the inclusion of horses would look in Europe at
• 21:26
  that time, which has also changed, you know, a a bunch compared to the states.
• 21:31
  I mean, I knew or I was aware already while living in Europe that there were a
• 21:37
  lot of these so called models and brands.
• 21:40
  So very American, you know, ideas of of like, oh, I'm gonna brand this and
• 21:45
  call this something very specific.
• 21:47
  So I was aware that that was what was happening there.
• 21:51
  And a lot of actually folks in Europe were looking more to the US
• 21:56
  specifically around psychotherapy.
• 21:59
  You know, the use of equine movement in physical therapy and occupational therapy,
• 22:04
  speech therapy really originated in the German speaking parts of of of Europe,
• 22:09
  and that felt very solid as a and also, you know, Finland was an early, early
• 22:15
  also forerunner with the first training in 19 89 mostly focused on, again,
• 22:21
  physical therapists and what's called ergotherapists or occupational therapists.
• 22:25
  But the psychotherapy work, surely there was there or there was definitely
• 22:30
  some early stuff happening in the eighties and nineties in in the
• 22:34
  German speaking countries with the inclusion of horses in psychiatry and
• 22:39
  inclusion of horses in psychotherapy.
• 22:42
  But there was definitely the sense that the Americans are doing a lot in this.
• 22:47
  Like, the Americans are really pushing forward.
• 22:50
  So that was, of course, something I was particularly interested in, and it
• 22:54
  was very much more when I was working in in Northern Europe, very much more
• 23:00
  common that a person was a physical therapist, for instance, instead of
• 23:04
  the few psychotherapists around who included horses or or even dogs and
• 23:11
  other animals in their in in their work.
• 23:14
  So coming to the states, it also was a matter of of just very I took a very
• 23:20
  empirical approach to to starting to see, okay, what what are you all doing
• 23:25
  here, and what can I get trained in?
• 23:27
  And I got trained in basically most things that were available at that time and
• 23:33
  really committed to understanding what the thing was and then, you know, sometimes
• 23:40
  arriving to this is not for me or this you know, after getting familiar with a
• 23:45
  number of things that were was going on, you know, in the US and really dedicating
• 23:50
  myself to understanding at first.
• 23:52
  I did notice that there was quite a quite a few things that weren't
• 23:57
  for me or didn't seem aligned with health care, specifically health
• 24:02
  care in the way we might talk about, you know, in health insurance
• 24:06
  billable service or using a term like psychotherapy to talk about treatment.
• 24:13
  Yeah.
• 24:14
  So I I made sure I got real familiar at first and also
• 24:18
  kept my relationships you know?
• 24:20
  There's a few people who are doing who who are running programs, and and Yeah.
• 24:25
  We're all have similar interests.
• 24:26
  So we're all, you know, colleagues.
• 24:28
  Some really close friends too for sure.
• 24:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 24:32
  What what what of the methods that you got trained in did
• 24:36
  you find really spoke to you?
• 24:39
  Nina Ekholm Fry: You know, I hate to be so biased here, but I ran into
• 24:42
  somebody named Rupert, and he was talking about some horse boy stuff.
• 24:47
  And I I just met him.
• 24:49
  Yeah.
• 24:50
  Yeah.
• 24:50
  Yeah.
• 24:50
  . But, honestly, that was learning about so both, of course, the
• 24:58
  inclusion of horses in the horse boy , you know, new trail system here.
• 25:03
  But, really, the the fundamentally right approach or appropriate approach
• 25:13
  to autism as a neurotype was honestly what really really got me because we
• 25:20
  weren't talking about horse's stuff.
• 25:23
  Instead, this my experiences is was we're centering an autistic experience.
• 25:30
  We're centering understanding each other as humans here.
• 25:34
  Right.
• 25:34
  Now we're thinking how do we include horses into that?
• 25:37
  And that was very attractive, you know, to me.
• 25:41
  And that was the way that I was thinking about things already.
• 25:45
  Mhmm.
• 25:45
  And and and so some of my, again, in my early empirical investigation,
• 25:51
  spent a lot of time also going back and forth to Texas and and learning at
• 25:55
  that time and and and learning more.
• 25:58
  And that's really what what what what got me, what I thought
• 26:02
  this this makes sense to me.
• 26:05
  Rupert Isaacson: You're you're extremely kind.
• 26:07
  And, obviously, with Horse Boy , we we we try our best to keep it an
• 26:14
  ever ever developing organism.
• 26:17
  We still, obviously, as you know, go for regular continuing education, really
• 26:24
  mentorship from neuroscientists and and indeed from autist autists themselves.
• 26:30
  Apart from horse boy method, did you find some other methods here in the US
• 26:34
  that really spoke to you and said yes, particularly on the psychotherapy end?
• 26:39
  Was there were there some things that really stood out?
• 26:43
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 26:44
  I think with, honestly, the other trainings, which I either then I took
• 26:50
  and became credentialed or I even hosted workshops, it didn't seem like
• 26:56
  they were using the same conceptual frame that was still sort of in
• 27:01
  infancy in my mind that I've later, you know, sort of really helped bring
• 27:07
  forth in my own work and and in Right.
• 27:09
  Kind of medical national context when the time was right for more clarifications
• 27:14
  around terminology and concepts and things like that just a few years ago here.
• 27:19
  But I didn't find that the really a kind of singular other approach that
• 27:25
  sort of was so clearly anchored in the understanding of, in this case, a
• 27:30
  particular population, not to say that this this your work is inherently tied
• 27:35
  just to 1 kind of person or something like that because it has so many aspects
• 27:40
  to it that are useful for developing minds and people and that kind of thing.
• 27:46
  So it wasn't I I I think it was more like, oh, this approach is an another approach.
• 27:52
  You take parts from that or this other approach was really leaning
• 27:56
  into like, working with teams and business executives, things like that.
• 28:01
  And and I was like, oh, yeah.
• 28:02
  I've done a lot of this experiential learning stuff in the forest of
• 28:06
  Finland here that I can recognize some of these, you know, the the
• 28:10
  same learning ideas, of course, the same experiential learning theory.
• 28:14
  And that makes sense too.
• 28:16
  But they felt more like these are very specific specifically directed things,
• 28:20
  and they weren't necessarily separating the equine interaction from Right.
• 28:27
  It's provided.
• 28:27
  And I think for me, that was always really important or how I, again, a
• 28:34
  little later started really more clearly conceptualizing this in my own work.
• 28:38
  Rupert Isaacson: So now let's go to to the work you're doing now.
• 28:42
  You you you've come out of the University of you spent 5 years there.
• 28:45
  You've gotten to know the equine assisted scene.
• 28:49
  You've you've, as you say, you've you've explored horse boy.
• 28:51
  You've explored some other methodologies.
• 28:54
  You've taken ideas from a number of places.
• 28:58
  Your background, though, still remains, you know, within the psychotherapy end.
• 29:02
  But yet then you end up at Denver University, and you end up at a really I
• 29:09
  would say, it still is, and it certainly was then, but it's it's remained, I
• 29:13
  think, the really cutting edge program, I think, within the USA on exploring what's
• 29:22
  the value of human animal connection.
• 29:29
  So how did you end up at Denver?
• 29:33
  What was on your mind to go there to do?
• 29:35
  And tell us about the work you've developed since you got there.
• 29:39
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
• 29:41
  Yeah.
• 29:41
  So I I had did not necessarily have a a a clear plan of leaving this this very
• 29:47
  compelling desert community in Arizona.
• 29:49
  I quite you know, by then, I'd gotten myself some a better immigration status.
• 29:54
  I had my horses who who are, you know, some of which are who are
• 29:59
  still alive, and they live now here in 1 state over in Colorado.
• 30:03
  No.
• 30:03
  It was it's actually a a colleague of mine who so graciously said, hey.
• 30:08
  I'd like you to come work at University of Denver.
• 30:12
  I'd like you to come to the Institute for Human Animal Connection.
• 30:15
  I'd like you to lead our equine efforts because the institute had been in existent
• 30:23
  existence for years, but it's sort of just been 1 faculty member and then
• 30:28
  initially a part time staff position.
• 30:30
  It had been kinda small.
• 30:32
  And right around that time, 20 14, 20 15, there was a concerted effort
• 30:38
  to actually build the institute up.
• 30:41
  And there was several of us, including the then director of research who's now
• 30:46
  the current executive director of the institute and myself and, again, some
• 30:50
  other folks started at the same time.
• 30:53
  It was very exciting time because it was possible to not only build on existing
• 30:58
  work that had been going on at a smaller scale at the institute, but now really
• 31:04
  take both the research side as well as the professional development or the sort of
• 31:09
  education side of that institute forward.
• 31:12
  So I got also had the opportunity to shape my role a little bit and wanted
• 31:17
  to make sure that it included both therapeutic human animal interactions
• 31:23
  as well as the experiences of horses in communities, meaning things like
• 31:28
  equine behavior, equine welfare, but really anchored in more of a social
• 31:33
  science lens as opposed to a veterinary medicine lens or or or things like
• 31:39
  Rupert Isaacson: that.
• 31:39
  So when people think about you know, a university beginning to put its attention
• 31:44
  on this kind of thing which I think for a lot of people is still a surprise.
• 31:48
  I think I think a lot of people, even in our field, are still perhaps unaware
• 31:55
  that you have your institute at Denver University, and now there's other academic
• 32:00
  institutions beginning to follow suit.
• 32:01
  I think a lot of us spent so long sort of out in the wilderness that we we
• 32:07
  it it it comes as a bit of a shock to us to think, oh, universities are
• 32:10
  actually interested in what we do.
• 32:13
  But there you are, of course, beginning to to run these well well, it's it's
• 32:19
  for you to tell us what you were doing.
• 32:20
  We we always picture, we layman, we non academics, what
• 32:23
  do they do at universities.
• 32:24
  They either teach or they run research.
• 32:26
  Right?
• 32:28
  What I presume you be with the institute began doing both.
• 32:35
  Tell us about the research and tell us about the t the vocational end.
• 32:40
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
• 32:40
  Yes.
• 32:41
  So at University of Denver, I'm a a faculty member in the
• 32:44
  Graduate School of Social Work.
• 32:45
  This is also where the institute sits.
• 32:49
  Even though, again I'm not a a social worker by training, this
• 32:53
  is typically a US profession.
• 32:55
  You know?
• 32:55
  When we talk about social work, this this this social work in Europe has
• 32:59
  different flavors, let's say, depending on the country, and it's a different
• 33:03
  kind of it's a different professional area than the core, what's known as
• 33:07
  the kind of US social work profession.
• 33:10
  I emphasize this again because you know, our executive director is a
• 33:14
  molecular biologist by training who
• 33:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Tell us who who is your executive
• 33:18
  Nina Ekholm Fry: director?
• 33:19
  Doctor Kevin Morris is his name who you've who you've also met at times.
• 33:24
  Yeah.
• 33:25
  We've
• 33:25
  Rupert Isaacson: had He he's an intriguing intriguing figure.
• 33:28
  Perhaps a little bit further on, you'll give us a bit of background
• 33:31
  on him because I think I think that would be useful for our our listeners.
• 33:35
  But okay.
• 33:36
  So you you you I you're there.
• 33:38
  You're beginning to run studies?
• 33:42
  You're beginning to research
• 33:43
  Nina Ekholm Fry: the field?
• 33:44
  Yes.
• 33:44
  So so, again, at the at the institute, we have a a a research side to it,
• 33:49
  so to speak, where we can process and manage grants and research processes.
• 33:54
  And we also do professional development and education and sort of, like,
• 33:59
  implementation science, basically.
• 34:01
  Like like, it's not just research because research tends to occur in quite
• 34:06
  narrow areas depending on its funding.
• 34:11
  But so our institute, I feel, is very unique also in that we we bring
• 34:16
  research to practice or we we spread the word about what's happening.
• 34:21
  So my roles currently on the on the faculty side within the graduate school I
• 34:27
  lead an area of social work study, which is also very unique called human animal
• 34:33
  environment interactions in social work.
• 34:35
  And the fact that we've taught these courses about the importance and
• 34:40
  impact of human animal interactions at University of Denver since 19 96.
• 34:47
  There was 1 little course, and now, you know, it it's really been DU or University
• 34:54
  of Denver has been a forerunner thanks to people like Philip Tedeschi and others who
• 35:00
  really said, I wanna teach about humans and animals with a social work lens.
• 35:06
  And now I'm in the position where I'm, again, overseeing this year
• 35:11
  specialization for people to formally study this in social work but to
• 35:17
  understand the importance and impact of these relationships also in clinical
• 35:23
  work, but also in a number of settings like, you know, pet ownerships,
• 35:28
  companion animals other health benefits of just being connected to nature.
• 35:35
  That's been a really a gift for University of Denver to be also supporting other
• 35:42
  social work schools in in really daring to talk loudly about, you know,
• 35:49
  human animal environment interactions.
• 35:52
  So that's part of my work.
• 35:53
  And then my other part is at the institute, which I can talk more about
• 35:56
  too, but I wanted to sort of highlight the the unique academic content that's
• 36:02
  also happening that more and more institutions are starting to dare have
• 36:07
  courses on human animal interactions.
• 36:10
  Rupert Isaacson: And so if you're doing that at a social a school of
• 36:12
  social work, does that mean that these are student social workers?
• 36:18
  And, basically, what they're being taught is the value of doing the work they're
• 36:23
  gonna do professionally with, say, therapy dogs, therapy horses, or outside in nature
• 36:29
  to get a better outcome for their clients and encouraging them to go animal based,
• 36:35
  nature based in their own practices.
• 36:37
  Is is is that sort of
• 36:39
  Nina Ekholm Fry: the idea?
• 36:40
  Yes.
• 36:40
  Part of it.
• 36:41
  Because not every social work student so they are social work students.
• 36:45
  I also teach in the graduate school of professional psychology.
• 36:48
  So I teach some of the doctoral students about interventions that
• 36:51
  include animal interactions, and that's more squarely clinical.
• 36:55
  Yeah.
• 36:56
  The social work students, the majority of them honestly are clinically
• 37:00
  focused, and that's pretty typical.
• 37:02
  You know, we have a clinical license for social workers, etcetera.
• 37:05
  But social workers also work on policy levels.
• 37:09
  They also work in what we call meso areas, meaning they might not
• 37:13
  work directly with 1 to 1 service.
• 37:16
  They might prefer to work with systems instead.
• 37:19
  They might prefer to work with policies or promote I see.
• 37:23
  The understanding, yeah, of, again, the impact and importance
• 37:27
  of these relationships.
• 37:29
  If you're seeking a safe place to be because of intimate partner violence,
• 37:34
  you're not gonna go to that shelter if it means you have to leave your
• 37:38
  dog behind in your house or give them up for adoption, a family member.
• 37:44
  You can choose between being not beaten up every day or leave
• 37:48
  your dog there to be beaten up.
• 37:49
  That's not a choice that people, you know, make.
• 37:53
  And but but others may not understand this.
• 37:56
  Mhmm.
• 37:56
  Others may say, oh, of course, you're gonna dump the dog.
• 37:59
  Right?
• 37:59
  Humans.
• 38:00
  Humans first.
• 38:01
  But that's not how the human species works necessarily with the importance importance
• 38:06
  of our interspecies connections.
• 38:08
  And that's really how we live, you know, and have been living.
• 38:13
  So it's it's understanding those kinds of things.
• 38:16
  Oh, why why are we seeing people who are killed by their intimate partners?
• 38:20
  Well, they might have barriers to seeking safety.
• 38:24
  Well, 1 of them might be that we're not understanding the importance
• 38:28
  and impact of their animal relationships completely or fully.
• 38:32
  So those are that's 1 of a a ton of examples that relate to, again,
• 38:39
  these these human animal environment interactions also outside of
• 38:42
  clinical work, but very much so also including animals in nature into
• 38:47
  the therapy process like you said.
• 38:49
  And
• 38:50
  Rupert Isaacson: would you hope that some of these students that then go
• 38:52
  on to have careers in, as you say, in the systems, in the admin, end up
• 38:57
  working in local health authorities or or even national health authorities.
• 39:02
  And then 1 would hope that what they've learned and what they've been taught
• 39:07
  and as a knock on effect that as they become policymakers, they include animal
• 39:13
  assisted stuff in government funded or insurance company funded treatments.
• 39:23
  So looking into
• 39:24
  Yes.
• 39:24
  Nina Ekholm Fry: And yeah.
• 39:26
  And it's really also understanding.
• 39:28
  Right?
• 39:28
  Like, currently, you you can include interactions with dogs and cats, horses,
• 39:33
  guinea pigs, rats in psychotherapy without restriction and getting reimbursed.
• 39:40
  Okay.
• 39:40
  You can't do you can't do things like animal therapy or dog therapy
• 39:45
  or horse therapy because that's not a therapy in the health care system.
• 39:55
  Enhance that.
• 39:57
  And that's a billable service because the animal does not constitute treatment or a
• 40:02
  modality or a strategy or an intervention.
• 40:05
  And this is something that then, you know, these graduate students who
• 40:09
  are really advanced learners in this area, you know, gain knowledge about.
• 40:16
  And then just like you said, some of them may be working clinically,
• 40:20
  but others may work in systems.
• 40:21
  And they may be setting policies for the schools, which happens quite a lot, the
• 40:26
  school district, to promote more animal and nature access in public schools, for
• 40:33
  Rupert Isaacson: instance.
• 40:34
  Okay.
• 40:34
  Okay.
• 40:35
  So you're really paying it forward.
• 40:36
  I mean, you're what you're doing there at DU is really training up the next
• 40:42
  generation of policymakers to place value on nature and animals at the
• 40:51
  institutional slash school slash billable clinical level, and that maybe we might
• 40:57
  be looking at a better picture of that in 15 years because these people have
• 41:04
  now gone on to somewhat senior positions having gone through your program.
• 41:09
  That's great.
• 41:10
  Yeah.
• 41:10
  Nina Ekholm Fry: And and in many ways, all all education and training, we also
• 41:14
  have our postmasters training program, which is not tied to an academic degree.
• 41:19
  It's a postmasters training, meaning you have a master's or doctoral
• 41:23
  already and you you're you're taught to to include interactions
• 41:27
  with horses into psychotherapy.
• 41:29
  That's 1 of our professional development offerings.
• 41:32
  But I think that any any of these trainings, right, that we anytime
• 41:36
  we educate, it is a pay it forward because it is sort of helping others
• 41:42
  gain the knowledge and apply it.
• 41:45
  But you're right that we we do we might really do have a very specific sort of
• 41:51
  intention as well around social good and social justice where we really
• 41:56
  emphasize that people who are graduating, whether from master's and and and
• 42:10
  and teach others, go forth and and learn learn more together with others.
• 42:16
  This is not a question of competitions or who who has the
• 42:20
  best, you know, training program.
• 42:22
  It's it's really about the recognition, like you said, or the importance of
• 42:27
  human animal interactions in a variety of
• 42:30
  Rupert Isaacson: ways.
• 42:31
  Are you looking are you seeing now other universities following
• 42:34
  suit from what DU has pioneered?
• 42:37
  Are are you seeing similar types of programs springing up across the
• 42:41
  Nina Ekholm Fry: US now?
• 42:43
  Yeah.
• 42:43
  I mean, I I spend a fair bit of time chatting with, consulting with,
• 42:47
  you know, with colleagues in in various especially in social work,
• 42:51
  in various social work schools.
• 42:53
  But I also you know, me and my actually former grad student, we
• 42:57
  just had another paper come out just last week, in fact, that maps the
• 43:03
  academic coursework that includes equine interactions in human services.
• 43:09
  Meaning, any courses that are at universities and colleges
• 43:14
  that teach either things like adaptive or therapeutic writing.
• 43:18
  That's the same thing.
• 43:19
  You know?
• 43:19
  That's more of a writing school course industry activity.
• 43:24
  But there's quite a lot of undergraduate institutions that have coursework
• 43:29
  specific that students can take, especially within equine, you
• 43:32
  know, science or equine studies.
• 43:35
  And it includes things like learning services, so education, that kind of thing
• 43:40
  where people teach a course how to include the horse and, of course, in therapy,
• 43:44
  whether that's psychotherapy whether that's occupational or physical or speech
• 43:48
  therapy, and also which institutions have survey or overview courses.
• 43:53
  So we just the this study just came out, like I said, last week, mapping
• 43:59
  the this, and we did a comparison because we did a replication of our
• 44:03
  study that came out 5 years ago.
• 44:06
  And we saw an increase in courses, an increase in institutions offering
• 44:12
  these coursework institute you know, increase in departments.
• 44:15
  So there's definitely, not just in my own personal kind of perception, but
• 44:21
  also, you know, using data and increase in interest in academic institutions
• 44:27
  when it comes to these things.
• 44:28
  This is the way of the
• 44:29
  Rupert Isaacson: future.
• 44:30
  Well, that's wonderful because, I mean, that can only mean that, yeah,
• 44:33
  professionals of the future are gonna come out of these programs.
• 44:38
  And as you say, that's that's got to be a tide that will
• 44:41
  lift all boats a much needed 1.
• 44:45
  You you are now also working outside of DU.
• 44:50
  I know that you've got you know, you you you are very influential
• 44:57
  and active in the sort of wider world of equine assisted stuff.
• 45:01
  You're sitting on boards.
• 45:03
  You're you're helping to get the field sort of moving forward and evolving.
• 45:11
  Which which boards and so on are you currently sitting on, and which
• 45:15
  organizations are you would you like us to know about that are doing work that
• 45:20
  you feel we should all be aware of?
• 45:24
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
• 45:24
  Yes.
• 45:25
  So currently I sit on the American Hippotherapy Association board.
• 45:30
  This is an organization that supports licensed physical therapists,
• 45:35
  occupational therapists, and speech language pathologists in the use of
• 45:39
  equine movement as a therapy tool.
• 45:42
  And not the horse, but the equine movement in health care in the
• 45:47
  US on in these professions is described as a therapy tool, the
• 45:52
  movement that the horse provides.
• 45:54
  So I sit on this board.
• 45:55
  This is actually my sixth and final year.
• 45:58
  I've I've served on this board for quite a while, sometimes as the only mental health
• 46:02
  professional amongst my colleagues and it's been a a really rewarding experience.
• 46:08
  I also currently, I'm trying to think of larger larger things.
• 46:12
  I sit on an advisory board for the state of Massachusetts that I'm really
• 46:17
  excited about because it's about promoting green care, and it's about
• 46:22
  allocating funds to providers in the state who are serving adolescents and
• 46:28
  young adults who have some sort of connection to substance use challenges.
• 46:34
  But it's finding ways of engaging people with green arenas or green
• 46:40
  spaces in in in their service provision, which is typically psychotherapy,
• 46:45
  but there's also other ways that these this population can be served
• 46:49
  under these state monies that exist.
• 46:52
  So the advisory board role is to allocate the money and also to advise,
• 46:58
  you know, the the the recipients of the money the grantees in that state.
• 47:04
  So those are a couple of of larger things that happened to not be specifically
• 47:08
  about equine interaction, but I also, you know, work with other other
• 47:12
  contexts or other other things as well.
• 47:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think you made a very good point earlier, which
• 47:17
  is that the interaction with horses and animals in general is part of
• 47:21
  the general interaction with nature.
• 47:23
  Yes.
• 47:24
  1 1 1 can't you know, 1 tends the nature tends to get used to mean interactions
• 47:29
  with natural landscapes as something rather separate from animals, but I'm a
• 47:35
  great believer that it's all the same.
• 47:38
  And to separate 1 from the other is asinine but it's
• 47:42
  understandable why people do it.
• 47:43
  So it it's exciting to me that you are making a point of drawing that
• 47:48
  connection on on on an academic and an organizational level.
• 47:54
  What what draws you to what drew you to the Hippotherapy
• 47:58
  Association in particular?
• 47:59
  What was what is it about that that approach that speaks to you?
• 48:05
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 48:06
  I would and I also wanna make sure I I mentioned a couple of organizations
• 48:10
  that I think there's been some really exciting or interesting stuff happening
• 48:14
  with human horse interactions.
• 48:16
  But, yeah, the American Hippotherapy Association or Again, the word
• 48:20
  hypotherapist is a little tricky.
• 48:22
  You can just say equine movement.
• 48:24
  It means the same thing.
• 48:26
  But I was originally asked to join that board because of my
• 48:31
  work on the mental health side.
• 48:33
  Yeah.
• 48:33
  So this organization has been a long standing organization,
• 48:37
  very typically organized, you know, for licensed providers.
• 48:43
  So I I've just enjoyed the exchange with my colleagues since I'd at at the time,
• 48:49
  I was still serving as the, I think, the the chair of a credentialing board
• 48:54
  called the CBEIP or the certification board for equine interaction
• 48:58
  professionals, which credential mental health professionals voluntarily.
• 49:02
  You know, this is a voluntary national thing.
• 49:05
  Mental health professionals as well as learning professionals.
• 49:08
  And I think it was through that connection as well because there's a separate
• 49:12
  credentialing board, similar 1 for OTs and PTs, occupational and physical therapists.
• 49:18
  So I think it was I was asked to join or or, you know, to talk more.
• 49:23
  What's happening on the mental health side?
• 49:25
  What's what's going on there?
• 49:26
  Because Mhmm.
• 49:27
  Unfortunately, there's not there's not a singular organization similar to that
• 49:32
  exists for those who provide psychotherapy and who are licensed or licensable,
• 49:39
  which is a very specific way of looking at, you know, therapy and treatment.
• 49:44
  Yeah.
• 49:45
  So that's how I that's how I ended up there, and it's been 6 6
• 49:49
  short years in a major pandemic.
• 49:51
  And I know it's been it's been a lovely, lovely time, and it's really also made
• 49:56
  me really connected to my colleagues who have different professions than me
• 50:02
  but are still health care providers.
• 50:06
  So
• 50:07
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 50:07
  Okay.
• 50:07
  But I want Yeah.
• 50:08
  So you mentioned that you wanted to draw our attention to a couple of other things.
• 50:12
  Okay?
• 50:13
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
• 50:13
  Since you since you mentioned this, you mentioned in the very beginning
• 50:17
  HETI, horses in education therapy international, and I'd just a couple of
• 50:21
  years ago finished tenure as a journal editor for them that I was for 10 years.
• 50:28
  And so they've been a and I'm, you know, still connected to them.
• 50:32
  They're sort of the international horse specific organization for for,
• 50:38
  again, horses in therapy and education.
• 50:42
  A similar organization, but for sort of all human animal interactions is called
• 50:48
  I Ohio, the International Association for Human Animal Interaction Organizations.
• 50:55
  And IOHIO is I've been connected with them for years too, but I wanted to highlight
• 51:01
  that there was a really good equine wealth fair and training and handling guidelines
• 51:07
  that came out of I Ohio and are freely available you know, for people to to find.
• 51:14
  I had a pleasure to be part of it, the international work group that
• 51:18
  created those guidelines and a couple of other things related to horses.
• 51:22
  But I think if I look back at the last few years of, you know, doing this kind
• 51:28
  of especially international work, which is very difficult to do because we are
• 51:33
  now talking about different countries, different cultures, different ways of
• 51:39
  thinking that don't have to be the same.
• 51:42
  You know?
• 51:43
  But those equine guidelines, I'm really, really proud of them how they turned
• 51:49
  out and, you know, the group that came together and their contribution
• 51:54
  overall when we think about horses in, you know, various human services
• 52:00
  including adapt you know, and think about adaptive or therapeutic riding,
• 52:02
  these guidelines were meant to be applicable for all these various areas.
• 52:10
  And I and I and I thought that that was such neat work.
• 52:13
  So I wanted to highlight that as as, you know, another reason for that.
• 52:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Specific about those guidelines.
• 52:18
  What so tell us about them in a bit more detail.
• 52:21
  What do they say?
• 52:23
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 52:23
  So they their guidelines for there's sort of 2 areas called care and welfare, and
• 52:30
  the other area is training and handling.
• 52:32
  Okay.
• 52:32
  And what I really appreciated about I Ohio's approach specifically is that
• 52:39
  there's quite a lot of these welfare guidelines or ethics guidelines.
• 52:43
  They can be quite aspirational.
• 52:46
  They can be quite thin.
• 52:48
  There might be a couple of sentences, you know, do no harm and, you know,
• 52:52
  let's be good to horses or something like that, but they don't necessarily
• 52:59
  provide more detailed guidance.
• 53:01
  It just depends on how a problem is can conceptualize.
• 53:04
  Sometimes we want more bigger principles.
• 53:06
  Right?
• 53:07
  But this the the organization supported the direction of our work group to take
• 53:17
  a braver stance to be clearer and more detailed, which is, again, difficult
• 53:23
  internationally about that we, yeah, that we need to use science based
• 53:30
  approaches of understanding horses.
• 53:33
  We need to think further than our own nose, as we say in Swedish, meaning, you
• 53:37
  know, sometimes if we stop thinking, we haven't gotten very far, barely off of our
• 53:42
  own face here and not even thinking about the welfare of horses, another species.
• 53:47
  So the the guidelines are quite they're detailed.
• 53:53
  They're clear in their recognition of horses as also vulnerable
• 53:59
  participants in these services, and they give, you know, clear guidance.
• 54:04
  Look.
• 54:04
  Horses need to have fiber.
• 54:06
  They need to be with other horses.
• 54:08
  They can't just stand inside in extreme confinement all day,
• 54:11
  and we just call that good.
• 54:13
  Yeah.
• 54:13
  So those are some of the the the the spirit of the guidelines
• 54:18
  really push things forward.
• 54:19
  And I even have been asked to give a talk at a at a conference.
• 54:23
  I gave this was it last year?
• 54:25
  No.
• 54:25
  Still this year.
• 54:26
  Even about the development of the guidelines because it was
• 54:29
  so unusual to be able to move.
• 54:33
  Maybe they're a couple of steps ahead, but I don't mind.
• 54:35
  You know?
• 54:35
  We'll catch up.
• 54:36
  You
• 54:37
  Rupert Isaacson: know?
• 54:37
  Do you have you found that those guidelines have been
• 54:40
  instituted and followed?
• 54:42
  Have you been able to trace that in certain areas?
• 54:47
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 54:47
  I mean, not formally because there's not a mechanism to say, like, okay.
• 54:51
  This country does this.
• 54:52
  But I've had colleagues translate them into different languages, and
• 54:56
  some have asked me to eye through them to see if they retain, you
• 55:00
  know, their original thought.
• 55:01
  But, again, English is my third language, so just we're all just trying here.
• 55:07
  And I've definitely had people contact me to ask a clarifying
• 55:11
  question or, you know, like, they're they're not just sitting somewhere.
• 55:16
  So
• 55:16
  Rupert Isaacson: people appear to be reacting to them.
• 55:18
  Yeah.
• 55:19
  Because, yeah, I I as you know, we we work internationally with horse sport.
• 55:23
  And when I'm going into new countries, sometimes it's like,
• 55:27
  it's gonna be tricky here.
• 55:29
  Yeah.
• 55:29
  The level of horse care is not what we'd wanna see.
• 55:34
  Yeah.
• 55:35
  And then the question is always, but could it get there?
• 55:38
  And, you know, if you're if you're 1 organization working alone, the
• 55:42
  answer is, well, maybe, but it it would be down to an individual
• 55:46
  stable deciding to up up its game.
• 55:51
  But I what I really like about what you're doing with I Ohio is it
• 55:56
  encourages a bit more of a systematic and institutional change and perhaps
• 56:02
  some of the equine assisted national bodies also beginning to look at this
• 56:07
  more and have that trickle down effect.
• 56:10
  Because it's true that, you know, when we're in the US or when we're in
• 56:12
  Europe, we often, to some degree, take for granted the good horse welfare.
• 56:17
  But even there, we can get some nasty surprises sometimes.
• 56:22
  But, yeah when you go outside, it it it's anybody's guess.
• 56:26
  You know, it it it's that thing of of particularly when 1 goes to countries
• 56:30
  where the horse is not necessarily part of the traditional culture.
• 56:36
  That it's something that may have been brought in.
• 56:40
  So with with the work that you're doing academically, let's bring
• 56:45
  it back to the university at DU, where are you hoping to take it?
• 56:49
  What's your what's your ambition?
• 56:50
  What are you what what are your plans?
• 56:54
  Yeah.
• 56:55
  I
• 56:55
  Nina Ekholm Fry: mean, I feel so fortunate that I'm I'm where I
• 57:00
  wanna be in terms of the space to do the work that's of interest to
• 57:06
  me the ability to just think, okay.
• 57:10
  What what do I wanna do?
• 57:11
  Do we wanna do more big events?
• 57:14
  Is that really where we wanna, you know, sit?
• 57:16
  Does another organization do that better or as well?
• 57:20
  And this is what we've found, for instance, in our collaboration with
• 57:23
  Green Chimneys in New York and that we're we're now, you know, collaborating
• 57:28
  on big practitioner conference events.
• 57:32
  Mhmm.
• 57:33
  And, you know, so for me, my the trajectory right now in the leadership
• 57:39
  team at the institute is really about where can we and I be most effective.
• 57:46
  We just launched a new equine behavior course, which is completely online,
• 57:51
  you know, with videos and things like that to just see, like, where
• 57:55
  are people accessing information?
• 57:58
  How can I, you know, work, which is my internal drive, you know, for a more just
• 58:02
  world, for people, for horses, for, again, people with different identities that
• 58:09
  might disadvantage it them in the eyes of others, you know, like disabilities
• 58:14
  or being neurodivergent or being a woman or, you know, these things that
• 58:19
  are categorical instead of individual?
• 58:23
  You know, I I I think then a lot, like I said, right now, because I have some
• 58:28
  some ability to make things happen more and more without having to lift the whole
• 58:34
  thing myself, you know, which which is not unusual in early early career, of course.
• 58:39
  But but to really think, where can we and I be most effective?
• 58:44
  Where can we make the most impact with these messages again about
• 58:49
  about justness and about equity?
• 58:51
  Rupert Isaacson: And where is that?
• 58:51
  Where where I where do you feel you can make the most impact
• 58:55
  in the in the next short term?
• 58:57
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 58:57
  So far, of course, it is a lot of people access things more easily online.
• 59:03
  Okay.
• 59:04
  So, you know, being able to offer offer access to our, you know,
• 59:10
  research, access to learning.
• 59:12
  But at the same time, interestingly enough, the postmasters program that I
• 59:17
  lead, we require 3 in person trainings in a or, like, it it's a limited
• 59:24
  residency 10 month training program.
• 59:26
  It's an advanced program.
• 59:28
  It's long.
• 59:29
  It's not and, you know, that perhaps sells faster, let's say, if you're
• 59:34
  doing a shorter thing over a weekend.
• 59:37
  But here, instead of reducing the in person training, we we are we are staying
• 59:43
  with 3, 4 day trainings across 10 months, which is quite a lot of in person activity
• 59:50
  and might be, again, more profitable, let's say, to run it differently.
• 59:56
  But there, I'm finding that the impact, the the return on investment
• 1:00:01
  for the participants is so so much higher when they are actually training
• 1:00:07
  hands on in a very defined culture.
• 1:00:10
  So it's not a drop in drop out, which also increases access,
• 1:00:15
  but I'm sort of modeling that.
• 1:00:16
  You know, I'm thinking both about how does this look when it is more online
• 1:00:21
  or accessible, but also how does it look when you're really doing a very
• 1:00:24
  specifically kind of specific culture of learning in advanced training.
• 1:00:29
  And we've really, you know, found great success with the postmasters
• 1:00:33
  program to the point where we're full, you know, we're full constantly.
• 1:00:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Wow.
• 1:00:39
  And in terms of and not.
• 1:00:43
  Sorry.
• 1:00:43
  Ohio.
• 1:00:44
  I was mixing it up with the Lusitano and Spanish shorts I
• 1:00:48
  I that I'd like to show for.
• 1:00:50
  I was like, Ohio and and Hetty, where where are you hopeful that
• 1:00:57
  the work with these international equine assisted bodies is going?
• 1:01:02
  What would you like to see?
• 1:01:06
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Again, international work is so tricky.
• 1:01:08
  I was just supporting my colleagues at HETI about this about another
• 1:01:12
  international project that I'm that I'm not a part of, but I was lending lending
• 1:01:17
  my input when when invited to do so.
• 1:01:20
  And I think that the movements internationally, there's a balance
• 1:01:27
  between this idea that there's just 1 right way that I, you know, I can
• 1:01:32
  work more intensively with that within a specific culture or in this case
• 1:01:38
  within a specific health care system.
• 1:01:40
  I know how the US health care system works, and I know how this how
• 1:01:45
  how to best go forward with that.
• 1:01:47
  So there in those context, I'm very much you know, able to be very specific, which
• 1:01:53
  an international organization might not be, not with those kinds of details.
• 1:01:58
  But what I'd like to see internationally when where you can't really advise people
• 1:02:03
  within their own health care systems, you have to know how that how it works
• 1:02:08
  and and how what words are being used and how to what's acceptable welfare.
• 1:02:23
  Like, what is acceptable here?
• 1:02:25
  Because it becomes a social license to operate more so than actual
• 1:02:31
  governmental licenses and things like that in most cases, especially in
• 1:02:35
  the US, where it's more about, hey.
• 1:02:39
  This is how we're doing this thing.
• 1:02:41
  Do you wanna be part of this?
• 1:02:42
  This is how we're modeling.
• 1:02:44
  This is how we appear.
• 1:02:45
  This is how, you know, as a group, as an area what we accept and we don't accept.
• 1:02:52
  And I feel like we're getting closer to things like not
• 1:02:55
  accepting 24 hour confinement, extreme confinement, specifically.
• 1:03:01
  And then, you know, 1 hour you get to do a therapy session with if you're a
• 1:03:06
  horse, you know, you get to come out of this stall and do this 1 thing,
• 1:03:10
  and then you get to call back in.
• 1:03:12
  I think it's it's the idea isn't to create barriers for access.
• 1:03:17
  The idea is to remove the the the physical structure in a lot of cases, but to
• 1:03:24
  rethink the design and what's allowable for horses and and what we accept for
• 1:03:33
  horses because it doesn't necessarily mean we have to have bigger places outside
• 1:03:37
  of the city and only some access them.
• 1:03:39
  Sometimes it means we just have to redesign and rethink
• 1:03:43
  what we already have here.
• 1:03:46
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:03:46
  I I agree.
• 1:03:47
  It's very interesting.
• 1:03:48
  The the project in Dublin, central Dublin child vision, which, as you may know, is
• 1:03:54
  a school for the visually impaired, but it's right in the middle of the city.
• 1:03:58
  And when it started, it has an equine program, and we've been
• 1:04:01
  involved there for some years.
• 1:04:03
  And when we first became involved there, they had quite a lot of
• 1:04:07
  land and then it all got sold.
• 1:04:09
  And they're down to the stable yard, an arena, 1 very, very small turnout paddock,
• 1:04:17
  and a rugby field that they have to share with the local school with around which
• 1:04:22
  they have a sensory trail and then the be you know, a bit of another trail.
• 1:04:28
  And the people who are running the equine program there, Terry Brosnan,
• 1:04:33
  who was a guest on on on this podcast, and Lucy Dillon, who I hope to get on.
• 1:04:38
  They've been incredibly inventive about how to make sure that the horses get
• 1:04:44
  their outside time, get their crazy time being free jumped as in groups
• 1:04:49
  in the arena, in herds that they get to go out and be hand walked and hand
• 1:04:55
  grazed and that they built this in as part of the therapy so that they're
• 1:05:00
  not having a conflict of time between, well, I've got to see all the serve all
• 1:05:04
  these clients, but how am I gonna get time to train or or serve the horses?
• 1:05:08
  But it's it's built into the client time.
• 1:05:11
  And then, of course, they're rotated out of the city every week or 2 as
• 1:05:16
  well, so they're just allowed to go into a field and just live out.
• 1:05:21
  And they've been very proactive about this.
• 1:05:25
  But as you yeah.
• 1:05:26
  As you know, it's it's it's not always the case.
• 1:05:28
  Well, what are you what are you the most excited about in terms of because you get
• 1:05:38
  to look at a lot of different programs.
• 1:05:40
  What are you excited about in the sort of general way the
• 1:05:43
  equine assisted world is going?
• 1:05:45
  And are there some programs out there that you feel that we should be aware
• 1:05:48
  of that are more recent that we feel you feel we should be taking a look at?
• 1:05:53
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 1:05:53
  And I can mention having worked with Child Wish Vision a bit too and and
• 1:05:58
  knowing Terry Brosnan really well.
• 1:06:00
  Yeah.
• 1:06:01
  So I've been aware of what you all are doing, of course there that it's
• 1:06:06
  I I just wanna highlight them also as an example of very restricted,
• 1:06:11
  like you said, like, space Yeah.
• 1:06:14
  And serving folks in a very central location and really, really
• 1:06:20
  feeling out that balance of, you know, is this is this sufficient?
• 1:06:24
  Can we do it this way?
• 1:06:26
  Should we do it this way with what we have given the the
• 1:06:28
  changes that they experienced?
• 1:06:30
  But the I think the the key thing that some folks lack is the right attitude.
• 1:06:38
  And ChildVision has that right attitude, meaning they are willing
• 1:06:42
  to examine every part of their equine living environment and their
• 1:06:47
  prostheses and then try to see, okay.
• 1:06:50
  We're gonna do this to the max here with what we have and then, you know, assess
• 1:06:57
  that in a really sort of honest way.
• 1:07:00
  And that quality I think when I think about sort of programs and people
• 1:07:04
  and things like that, I think mostly about when I encounter that quality.
• 1:07:08
  And and I I consult for a foundation here in Southern Colorado called
• 1:07:14
  Flying Horse Foundation, and they're very similar like that.
• 1:07:17
  You know, the attitude is there, meaning we can solve the
• 1:07:22
  other stuff in various ways.
• 1:07:24
  But we can't solve an attitude that's not willing to be willing to examine
• 1:07:30
  really the truth about our relationships with horses, which is we do, you know,
• 1:07:34
  we do what we want, and we kinda want them to be okay too, but we cannot
• 1:07:38
  we can't sort of delude ourselves about the power difference between us.
• 1:07:44
  So that's, I guess, what I would be most excited about also internationally
• 1:07:53
  given that people think about equine interactions in so many ways, it
• 1:07:57
  would be to continue cultivating an attitude, An attitude that I actually
• 1:08:02
  also have seen saw quite a bit in my early work with you all in Texas.
• 1:08:08
  Right?
• 1:08:08
  The this attitude of, like, if the attitude's right, we
• 1:08:12
  can solve this other stuff.
• 1:08:14
  Yeah.
• 1:08:14
  But we can't without a creative mind.
• 1:08:17
  We can't without some resources, but the point isn't to have unlimited resources.
• 1:08:23
  Yeah.
• 1:08:23
  The point is to to be able to really work with what you have.
• 1:08:28
  And that's what I do when I do facility design consultation for I get to do this
• 1:08:33
  with, you know, also equestrian facilities outside of human horse interactions.
• 1:08:39
  That's what gets me excited.
• 1:08:41
  That's what I wanna help cultivate in people.
• 1:08:44
  And I try to model it, of course, in myself, but I'm that's maybe
• 1:08:48
  where I wanna has to go as an area.
• 1:08:51
  You know?
• 1:08:53
  Rupert Isaacson: So how can listeners learn more, get involved, and,
• 1:08:59
  also, how can they help how can they become part of that mission
• 1:09:03
  for example, with Etienne, Ohio.
• 1:09:05
  And so if someone is it it's a lot of the people who are gonna be tuning
• 1:09:09
  into this, they won't necessarily be, you know, veterans of the field.
• 1:09:14
  A lot of people a lot of them are young people who are looking
• 1:09:18
  to go into this as a profession.
• 1:09:21
  And there's a kind of as you know now, there's this kind of almost too big of a
• 1:09:26
  smorgasbord of available ways to go in now where it was very narrow a few years ago.
• 1:09:34
  So, yeah, a, how how do people reach you, and what involvement and participation
• 1:09:43
  can they have in what you're doing and what these organizations are doing?
• 1:09:47
  And then from there, I'm gonna ask you for some advice for some
• 1:09:50
  people coming into the industry.
• 1:09:52
  So so to start with, how do people contact you, get involved, and
• 1:09:55
  what kind of involvement would be useful to the university and and
• 1:10:00
  to these organizations to kind of bring this whole field forward, do
• 1:10:04
  Nina Ekholm Fry: you feel?
• 1:10:04
  Yes.
• 1:10:05
  Yeah.
• 1:10:06
  The main the main important involvement is the person with themselves.
• 1:10:11
  Like like, finding what you're interested in and then modeling,
• 1:10:16
  living through your values, which can be hard if you don't have a
• 1:10:20
  tribe or a or a context or community.
• 1:10:23
  Mhmm.
• 1:10:23
  But they will they are they are there out there.
• 1:10:26
  You just have to try to find which 1 is right for you.
• 1:10:30
  But the most important valuable way of starting to get involved is, of course,
• 1:10:35
  to seek out knowledge, but then start living living through it yourself.
• 1:10:40
  You know?
• 1:10:40
  So you're not just sort of passive passively thinking about stuff, but
• 1:10:44
  getting in there and finding opportunities where you can try different things out.
• 1:10:49
  When it comes to the university, you know, we of course, mostly
• 1:10:52
  work internally with our students.
• 1:10:54
  You know?
• 1:10:55
  We have formal formal processes because we're a university that relates to them.
• 1:11:00
  Even if you are, you know, students at University of
• 1:11:03
  Denver, they can be work studies.
• 1:11:04
  They can be part of our research as student researchers, things like that.
• 1:11:08
  So we we do a lot of that training, but it's internal to the university.
• 1:11:13
  Seeking out some of our we we have professional development courses and
• 1:11:17
  things like that, but we also do, like, you know, stream presentations
• 1:11:22
  and and do other kind of, you know, really accessible stuff.
• 1:11:26
  So connecting with us as an institute, either on our social media or
• 1:11:31
  getting on our newsletter list.
• 1:11:32
  You can, you know, be in be be see what we're doing and where we wanna go.
• 1:11:38
  Working with me you can contact me by email, contact me on Facebook, you know,
• 1:11:43
  tell me what you're interested in and and see what I can do to connect you,
• 1:11:48
  what I can do to sort of, create a a community or show you communities that
• 1:11:54
  where you can be effective because, again, you can be effective in your
• 1:11:58
  own right modeling, just being a person who's interested in always being
• 1:12:03
  curious and always finding new things.
• 1:12:05
  But you can also then get involved with some of the older older
• 1:12:09
  organizations, so to speak, who may benefit a bit from a little better
• 1:12:14
  pace on the change if that makes sense.
• 1:12:17
  So I encourage all everyone to get there's typically committees and task forces.
• 1:12:23
  This all involves volunteer work and that might not be everybody might not have
• 1:12:27
  those hours to spare you know, equitably.
• 1:12:31
  But, you know, that's what we need.
• 1:12:34
  We're we're we need it's such a big change, like you said, from a few years
• 1:12:38
  ago or a decade ago when there's just a few people who got to say things.
• 1:12:43
  And then those people had their student, and they got to say the same thing.
• 1:12:47
  And now, you know, we have access to a much broader kind of spectrum
• 1:12:51
  of of experiences here in this area of human humans and horses.
• 1:12:57
  So that's that's where I would start there.
• 1:12:59
  I think you had a follow-up a
• 1:13:01
  Rupert Isaacson: follow-up question.
• 1:13:02
  Yeah.
• 1:13:02
  If if people are I'm I'm gonna get those resources that you mentioned
• 1:13:06
  in a few minutes so people will know the the email will know the social
• 1:13:11
  media and the websites and so on.
• 1:13:13
  But what would be your advice for young people going into this field now?
• 1:13:18
  Because it's a it's a much broader field than it was and they need to orient
• 1:13:21
  themselves and find out perhaps where they fit and what the opportunities are.
• 1:13:26
  What's your advice?
• 1:13:28
  Yeah.
• 1:13:29
  Nina Ekholm Fry: I I think that it's really useful to think about
• 1:13:32
  human animal interactions in the context also of your human interests,
• 1:13:38
  especially if you wanna, again, provide services where you include animals.
• 1:13:42
  Meaning, you might be particularly interested in the OCD community of
• 1:13:48
  obsessive compulsive disorders, and you you are knowledgeable and you're
• 1:13:53
  an advocate in with this you know, severe mental illness and the experience
• 1:13:59
  of of OCD, and then you learn, hey.
• 1:14:02
  What are the protective factors?
• 1:14:04
  It could be animal relationships.
• 1:14:06
  It could be getting treatment outdoors instead of indoors.
• 1:14:09
  Like, you're you I I encourage people to sort of there there are some people whose
• 1:14:14
  niche is more squarely on the animal side, and they're assisting with understanding
• 1:14:19
  the animals as part of human services.
• 1:14:21
  But if you're at all interested in interacting on the human side, really
• 1:14:28
  becoming immersed and knowledgeable about that human topic, whether
• 1:14:32
  it's a specific area of learning or or or or support services.
• 1:14:37
  Right?
• 1:14:37
  Or if you're interested in what a lot of people, you know,
• 1:14:41
  contact me and say horse therapy.
• 1:14:43
  I I just wanna do horse therapy.
• 1:14:45
  My question is always, do you want to be a health care provider?
• 1:14:50
  Because therapy is typically thought of as as part of of health care.
• 1:14:55
  Are you passionate about that?
• 1:14:57
  Are you passionate about treatment?
• 1:15:00
  You know?
• 1:15:00
  If so, let's think about what kind of license you wanna pursue and then think
• 1:15:06
  about how can you include interactions with horses to enhance this to really
• 1:15:10
  help people have an even more enhanced experience, you know, of their of their
• 1:15:15
  psychotherapy work and influence some of the colleagues to whom a client can't
• 1:15:20
  even say they've lost their dog because they're gonna say, oh, your dog died.
• 1:15:23
  Whatever.
• 1:15:24
  I thought your brother was ill.
• 1:15:26
  Yeah.
• 1:15:26
  And you care about 50 times more about this dog than your brother.
• 1:15:30
  Like, we have to sort of change that kind of culture.
• 1:15:33
  So and and the same can go in any area.
• 1:15:36
  You might not be interested in health care.
• 1:15:39
  You might be interested in other services that actually
• 1:15:41
  suit some populations better.
• 1:15:44
  And then be really good at that, be really good at the context
• 1:15:48
  you're in, and then understand how those animal interactions fit.
• 1:15:52
  Is again, I'm taking just 1 1 angle here.
• 1:15:56
  There's many more It's
• 1:15:57
  Rupert Isaacson: a good it's a very good angle, though because I think what
• 1:16:01
  you've touched on is that when people are coming out of the horse community
• 1:16:06
  wanting to go into, quote, unquote, therapeutic riding, which is just the
• 1:16:10
  term a lot of people would use in a very general way without necessarily knowing
• 1:16:16
  what that is or quite where they would end up within the equine assisted field.
• 1:16:20
  I think what you've touched on is that a lot of people want to come into it
• 1:16:24
  from a just well, I want to use horses.
• 1:16:26
  I love horses, and I wanna use horses to help people feel better, which is,
• 1:16:30
  of course, a laudable and good thing.
• 1:16:33
  But I think that often it's not thought through much more than that.
• 1:16:37
  And then if you put yourself in, say, my position as an autism father, well,
• 1:16:43
  I would like, in a perfect world, the person who's interacting with my
• 1:16:47
  autistic child to have a really, really, really solid background in autism.
• 1:16:51
  I also want them to have the horse skills, of course.
• 1:16:54
  But I want them to be taking that deep and vocational interest in
• 1:17:02
  the condition that my son has.
• 1:17:04
  Otherwise, there's a bit of a limit to what they can offer.
• 1:17:08
  And so I think your point is is actually very valid that if you're
• 1:17:13
  horsey and you want to go into the equine assisted world, you've probably
• 1:17:19
  got some horse skills already.
• 1:17:21
  And, of course, we can always upscale ourselves.
• 1:17:23
  There'll be a a small minority of people that come in as absolute
• 1:17:26
  rookies, but most people do it because they're already involved in horses.
• 1:17:30
  But I agree with you.
• 1:17:32
  It's not enough.
• 1:17:33
  I I think that without taking seriously the vocational feel of trying to be
• 1:17:42
  quite specific about the population or populations that you wanna work with
• 1:17:46
  because, of course, there's interplay between them, is something that I think
• 1:17:53
  isn't often thought through by people when they're going into the industry.
• 1:17:57
  And then what happens is they can end up getting a bit lost.
• 1:18:02
  Do you know of courses, training programs, orientation programs, that
• 1:18:09
  sort of thing that are being offered by some of these larger organizations
• 1:18:12
  that you're now involved with or other institutions that some of these people
• 1:18:18
  entering the industry could look to to help themselves get oriented?
• 1:18:24
  Yeah.
• 1:18:24
  Nina Ekholm Fry: My my advice, and, of course, it's gonna be a little biased,
• 1:18:28
  is to check us out as an academic institution because we have some trainings
• 1:18:34
  for sure, but we are also not like we also function as a knowledge hub.
• 1:18:40
  Right.
• 1:18:40
  Meaning, we're not needing to sell our own stuff.
• 1:18:44
  We have a university structure that helps, you know, keep us also going and that
• 1:18:50
  affords us that kind of a perspective, right, where I can't you know, if I ran
• 1:18:56
  my own own business, I wouldn't, you know, miss an opportunity to promote it.
• 1:19:01
  But it's it becomes a little different when you get to be in
• 1:19:04
  the in that this academic setting.
• 1:19:06
  It kinda have some drawbacks too, but but that's what I would say,
• 1:19:11
  you know, people who are interested in various ways that forces can be
• 1:19:16
  included can on them their own think.
• 1:19:19
  What kind of human service do I wanna do like we said?
• 1:19:23
  What do I wanna be really serious about, really knowledge knowledgeable about,
• 1:19:27
  really make sure I'm not missing the mark here, being harmful unintentionally.
• 1:19:34
  Mhmm.
• 1:19:34
  And then about including, you know, horses there because you can include interactions
• 1:19:40
  with animals so you can emphasize them in just endless amounts of human
• 1:19:45
  human services and human professions.
• 1:19:48
  So that's where I would sort of go because it depends on if people
• 1:19:52
  wanna do adaptive writing lessons.
• 1:19:54
  I would send them 1 way.
• 1:19:55
  I have that credential as well.
• 1:19:57
  If they wanna do another kind of school based work and and really
• 1:20:02
  just wanna get going on learning about some of the curriculum
• 1:20:05
  examples, I know where to send them.
• 1:20:07
  So but I think the overall idea kinda capturing this this idea that if you
• 1:20:13
  think about it in that way, that the human service exists and you include
• 1:20:18
  the horse into that human service, it really helps you stay clear on, I need
• 1:20:23
  to be really good at both these things.
• 1:20:25
  Yeah.
• 1:20:27
  Yeah.
• 1:20:27
  It's in both differences.
• 1:20:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:20:29
  Yeah.
• 1:20:29
  I couldn't agree more.
• 1:20:30
  In some ways, it makes it 1 of the most complex fields to go into
• 1:20:33
  because then you've you've got the whole human side and the condition
• 1:20:39
  that you're looking to dress.
• 1:20:41
  But then you've got the whole horse training for that side, and then you got
• 1:20:45
  the whole horse welfare side before you're even looking at the organizational ups and
• 1:20:52
  downs of of running programs and so on.
• 1:20:54
  You know, it's it's really generous of you to say that you can guide
• 1:21:01
  people and people can email you.
• 1:21:03
  I know there are gonna be some people that will want to.
• 1:21:07
  Can you give us an email that we can give to people?
• 1:21:11
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Absolutely.
• 1:21:12
  I and I will make sure I have it in writing.
• 1:21:15
  It's gonna be my, you know, my should I say it now, or should we put it
• 1:21:19
  Rupert Isaacson: in writing?
• 1:21:19
  Now, and I'll repeat it, and then I'll I'll I'll get it for we'll we'll make sure
• 1:21:23
  it's there as a as a link in the blurb.
• 1:21:26
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
• 1:21:26
  And we'll write it down.
• 1:21:27
  And the good thing is because I have 3 names, if you put all those 3 names
• 1:21:31
  1 after another in in your Internet engine, you will most likely land on me.
• 1:21:37
  Just
• 1:21:37
  Rupert Isaacson: make sure you do any econ fries out there.
• 1:21:39
  It's true.
• 1:21:40
  Yeah.
• 1:21:41
  No.
• 1:21:41
  Nina Ekholm Fry: I know.
• 1:21:41
  It's the extra name.
• 1:21:43
  You know?
• 1:21:43
  It's sort of probability wise adds it.
• 1:21:46
  So my email is my first name, n I n a, and then there's a period, and then
• 1:21:52
  there's my middle name, e k h o l m.
• 1:21:57
  And then in my email, there's a hyphen, but, otherwise, there is not.
• 1:22:01
  F r y at
• 1:22:05
  Rupert Isaacson: It it runs in, yeah, aircon fry is just 1 word.
• 1:22:08
  Right?
• 1:22:09
  In this At is a
• 1:22:10
  Nina Ekholm Fry: hyphen hyphen between aircon Right?
• 1:22:13
  But, really, in my name, there is not.
• 1:22:15
  Go ahead.
• 1:22:16
  Address, there was technological restraints in how how how
• 1:22:20
  you can write these 3 names.
• 1:22:22
  So, yeah, first name, n I n a, period, e k h o l m, hyphen, f r y at, d as in
• 1:22:31
  Denver, u as in university, dot e d u.
• 1:22:34
  And that's how you can find me directly.
• 1:22:36
  You can also find this email, like I said, by by searching for my name and
• 1:22:41
  d and u, and you'll see the university, and you'll see my faculty page as well.
• 1:22:45
  So let
• 1:22:46
  Rupert Isaacson: me read this back to you.
• 1:22:47
  Nina, n I n a, dot e kholm, e k h o l m, hyphen, f r y at d u dot e d u?
• 1:23:05
  Perfect.
• 1:23:05
  Okay.
• 1:23:06
  Got it.
• 1:23:09
  And then give us a website that people can go to to learn more about
• 1:23:14
  the work at the university that you're doing, the the institute.
• 1:23:19
  Nina Ekholm Fry: So, Yes.
• 1:23:21
  Easiest way to is to type in IHAC.
• 1:23:25
  So it's an acronym for Institute for Human Animal Connection.
• 1:23:28
  So it's I h a c dot, d as in Denver, u as in university, dot e d u.
• 1:23:38
  So just put in I hack dot d u dot e d u, and you'll find our institute.
• 1:23:44
  Our institute's work where you'll learn a lot more about our research
• 1:23:48
  areas, a lot more about our our events and professional development
• 1:23:53
  and training, and also just how we wanna implement or bring to practice
• 1:23:57
  the knowledge that we also generate through our through our our research.
• 1:24:01
  Rupert Isaacson: I h a c dot d u dot e d u.
• 1:24:06
  Institute for Human and Animal Connection at Denver University.
• 1:24:10
  And there, they can also learn access your online education stuff, the
• 1:24:16
  events you do, the streaming events that you do, and they can sort of join
• 1:24:22
  that community and benefit from that.
• 1:24:27
  That's if if someone this was gonna be another question.
• 1:24:32
  If if if people are running programs and they want to find get oriented towards
• 1:24:38
  finding studies that back up the work that they're doing which, of course, is always
• 1:24:42
  helpful when they're looking for funding.
• 1:24:45
  Does iHAC can it help them with that to find some some of the
• 1:24:49
  studies that will support the work, the equine assisted work?
• 1:24:54
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
• 1:24:54
  We don't have a a public repository, but others do.
• 1:24:59
  And there's actually a big 1 run by Fran Jurga who who's, you know, an
• 1:25:04
  equine an equine assisted studies repository where you can, you
• 1:25:09
  know, search yourself, so to speak.
• 1:25:12
  Okay.
• 1:25:12
  Because because our systems are you know, our university libraries and
• 1:25:16
  things are are are university specific, which is 1 of the limitations,
• 1:25:22
  sadly, of working in that system.
• 1:25:23
  Yeah.
• 1:25:24
  But that's how I would that's how I would start the search and also knowing
• 1:25:28
  that when you're looking for research to support your proposals, your grant
• 1:25:34
  applications, My my top tip is you're gonna need to be creative because there's
• 1:25:40
  research, but the research is as varied as some of the experiences Rupert and
• 1:25:47
  I have talked about where sometimes you walk into a a a training place and you're
• 1:25:52
  gonna run a course and you go, okay.
• 1:25:55
  We have different thoughts about about horses here.
• 1:25:58
  And interestingly enough, because the, you know, equine interactions
• 1:26:02
  or horse interactions area is so niche, sometimes and I've been, as I
• 1:26:07
  mentioned, a journal editor myself, but sometimes I think that people
• 1:26:11
  just said, ah, you can publish that.
• 1:26:13
  That's fine.
• 1:26:13
  It sounds interesting.
• 1:26:15
  And we sorta lost lost the plot a little bit on on the rigor.
• 1:26:19
  So that would be my also my top tip that in all things, we must be creative.
• 1:26:25
  There won't be a treasure trove of research articles that are perfect.
• 1:26:30
  You are still going to need to, you know, sort of work on your work on your
• 1:26:35
  case and not and not rely on on some perhaps medium quality stuff that's out
• 1:26:41
  Rupert Isaacson: there.
• 1:26:42
  But you say there's there's someone called Fran Jurgen who has put together
• 1:26:47
  a repository of the of assisted studies?
• 1:26:51
  She
• 1:26:51
  Nina Ekholm Fry: has a huge repository and I'm kinda now kinda blanking
• 1:26:55
  on the exact name of its this
• 1:26:57
  Rupert Isaacson: call.
• 1:26:57
  She's j u r g a, isn't she?
• 1:26:59
  Fran yoga?
• 1:27:01
  Yeah.
• 1:27:01
  Yes.
• 1:27:01
  Nina Ekholm Fry: With a j.
• 1:27:02
  Yes.
• 1:27:02
  And she's based
• 1:27:03
  Rupert Isaacson: up is she based up in Massachusetts, I seem to think?
• 1:27:07
  Perhaps.
• 1:27:08
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Perhaps.
• 1:27:08
  I just I talked to Yeah.
• 1:27:10
  I talked to her just, like, a couple of months ago last,
• 1:27:14
  but but, yeah, check it out.
• 1:27:16
  I can't the the actual name escapes me, but I it shouldn't be too hard to find.
• 1:27:20
  That's something that she's been working on.
• 1:27:23
  And so been
• 1:27:23
  Rupert Isaacson: a labor of love for her to put that together
• 1:27:26
  just to help advance the field?
• 1:27:29
  Nina Ekholm Fry: I don't know.
• 1:27:29
  We'll have to investigate more.
• 1:27:31
  I only know that she's in touch with me regularly to check-in about
• 1:27:35
  publications and things like that.
• 1:27:37
  So she's really you know, invested in in sort of bringing things
• 1:27:41
  together in an accessible place.
• 1:27:43
  It's it's my experience, but we we have to investigate further.
• 1:27:47
  She might be an interesting guest too.
• 1:27:48
  So
• 1:27:48
  Rupert Isaacson: No.
• 1:27:49
  She might well.
• 1:27:49
  And, actually, I'm I'm I'm looking her up now.
• 1:27:54
  So if if if listeners want to type in her name, Fran Jurga, j u r g a, you'll see
• 1:28:04
  that she pops up that she's a researcher.
• 1:28:07
  She also other types of veterinary, equine science, hoof care, equine podiatry,
• 1:28:15
  equestrian sport, veterinary medicine.
• 1:28:18
  So it's it's she's quite broad.
• 1:28:22
  And yeah, I can see the resources just so.
• 1:28:25
  If you just just typing in her name gets 1 to So I think it should
• 1:28:35
  might actually be in Michigan.
• 1:28:37
  Yeah.
• 1:28:37
  Okay.
• 1:28:38
  Well, that's a good tip.
• 1:28:41
  Well, listen.
• 1:28:43
  It's been it's been great to reconnect with you.
• 1:28:45
  It always is.
• 1:28:46
  And I'm just so impressed with how you've just helped to advance the field.
• 1:28:53
  And 1 thing which I've also really appreciated, I think, You know, when I
• 1:28:59
  first got involved in things that Equine assisted, I didn't do it by choice.
• 1:29:04
  As you know, I did it because my son had this reaction to the horse, and
• 1:29:10
  so I followed it and off we went.
• 1:29:13
  But, of course, I found out very quickly how factional and sometimes
• 1:29:18
  toxic the world of equine assisted stuff was sadly, and it came from a
• 1:29:25
  scarcity mentality of of people being worried, I think, that there was a
• 1:29:29
  limited number of resources out there.
• 1:29:31
  So anything new is a threat.
• 1:29:35
  And I think that it's not quite as bad as that anymore.
• 1:29:39
  And I think that's been I think you've been hugely influential
• 1:29:43
  in that, actually, Nina.
• 1:29:45
  I think your Scandinavian sense of justice and fairness so Nordic, really, I
• 1:29:50
  should say, has made a real contribution.
• 1:29:57
  I've I've I've watched you over the years bringing people together,
• 1:30:00
  bringing people together, bringing the organizations together, making
• 1:30:03
  sure everybody has a profile.
• 1:30:07
  And I think you've act I think it's actually born fruit.
• 1:30:11
  I think that you've helped to make the culture itself more empathetic, which
• 1:30:20
  was very necessary because we're supposed to be providing empathetic services.
• 1:30:26
  So if we're not leading with that ourselves, then there's a bit of
• 1:30:29
  a limit to the what we can offer to to a client who needs it.
• 1:30:35
  But, really you you've you've been very instrumental in that
• 1:30:38
  ever since the Prescott days.
• 1:30:41
  So, you know, please please keep doing it.
• 1:30:44
  And anything we can do to support, you must let us know because it's it goes
• 1:30:52
  so beyond individual methodologies.
• 1:30:54
  It's 1 big field, and I see it much more almost like a a
• 1:31:01
  university with a bunch of different faculties, but they're all related.
• 1:31:05
  They're all related.
• 1:31:08
  And it's if we want health authorities and governments and so forth to
• 1:31:15
  take us to the next level, then we also have to start behaving
• 1:31:19
  like grown ups at least in public.
• 1:31:21
  So, I think you've been an inspiration that way, and you've you've you've you've
• 1:31:25
  brought out the best in people to to sort of bring their higher self to the field.
• 1:31:33
  So thank you for that.
• 1:31:35
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Well, thank you.
• 1:31:36
  That was a that was a lovely, uplifting thing, and that's what
• 1:31:40
  I've always felt from you too.
• 1:31:42
  So I I I love the the symbiosis here.
• 1:31:48
  And I so appreciate being a guest on this on this podcast.
• 1:31:51
  You know?
• 1:31:52
  I I just I mean, our conversations are always great, but to be able to
• 1:31:56
  be part of the podcast community as well and to everybody listening Yeah.
• 1:32:01
  That's so lovely.
• 1:32:02
  So thank you.
• 1:32:04
  Rupert Isaacson: And anytime you've got you know, and the institute has something
• 1:32:08
  new coming up, let us know, and we can broadcast it, let people know, big it up.
• 1:32:14
  Wonderful.
• 1:32:15
  Yeah.
• 1:32:15
  Wow.
• 1:32:17
  Well, I know that you've you've probably run over the time that you
• 1:32:21
  needed to give because fair full disclosure listeners, I was a bit late.
• 1:32:25
  And so, Nina's actually been very generous to let us go as long as I know
• 1:32:30
  she needs to run off to another meeting.
• 1:32:33
  So thank you.
• 1:32:34
  And let's catch up soon, and hopefully, we get to do this again.
• 1:32:41
  Nina Ekholm Fry: Of course.
• 1:32:42
  We we can only hope.
• 1:32:43
  No.
• 1:32:43
  I would love to.
• 1:32:44
  So thank you you again for having me, for letting me talk about my human horse
• 1:32:50
  interaction staff, and, again, for being part of this with all your listeners.
• 1:32:54
  Thank you.
• 1:32:55
  Rupert Isaacson: K.
• 1:32:56
  See you soon.
• 1:32:58
  Bye.
• 1:32:59
  Bye.
• 1:33:00
  thank you for joining us.
• 1:33:01
  We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
• 1:33:03
  Join our website, new trails learning.com, to check out our online
• 1:33:08
  courses and live workshops in Horse Boy Method, movement Method, and Athena.
• 1:33:14
  These evidence-based programs have helped children, veterans, and people
• 1:33:18
  dealing with trauma around the world.
• 1:33:21
  We also offer a horse training program and self-care program
• 1:33:25
  for riders on long ride home.com.
• 1:33:28
  These include easy to do online courses and tutorials that
• 1:33:32
  bring you and your horse joy.
• 1:33:35
  For an overview of all shows and programs, go to rupert isaacson.com.
• 1:33:40
  See you on the next show.
• 1:33:41
  And please remember to press, subscribe and share.