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What If Healing Starts Outside The Office · Equestrian Tea Time

• 0:00
  Isabeau: Hello, everybody.
• 0:01
  Isabeau: Welcome back to another episode of Equestrian Tea Time.
• 0:05
  Isabeau: I am your host, Isabel Salais.
• 0:07
  Isabeau: I am in New Hampshire.
• 0:08
  Isabeau: My co-host is Emma Jenkinson.
• 0:10
  Isabeau: She's in New Mexico.
• 0:11
  Isabeau: And in this episode, we spoke to Daria Williams.
• 0:15
  Isabeau: She is in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
• 0:17
  Isabeau: Daria William is a lifetime horseperson, having graduated Pony Club and then run her own boarding barn for 20 years.
• 0:27
  Isabeau: She recently completed an Agala five-day course.
• 0:32
  Isabeau: I'm going to quote from their website.
• 0:33
  Isabeau: It is Agala stands for the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association, which is dedicated to revolutionizing mental health treatment by incorporating the profound and therapeutic presence of horses.
• 0:45
  Isabeau: So she's going to give us her feedback as a lifetime horse professional, what that program was like, and all the new and surprising and interesting things that she learned.
• 0:53
  Isabeau: If you're not familiar with the area where Daria lives, New Hope, Pennsylvania, it is a gorgeous place to visit.
• 0:59
  Isabeau: New Hope, Pennsylvania, and Lambertville, New Jersey, Stradlicha other over the Delaware River.
• 1:05
  Isabeau: This is the area where George Washington had his famous uh Christmas Eve crossing of the Delaware.
• 1:11
  Isabeau: Then they were big industry towns in the 18th and 19th century, producing and exporting all kinds of goods.
• 1:18
  Isabeau: And they built a canal system, the Delaware Canal System there has lots of great parks.
• 1:23
  Isabeau: Um and New Hope turned into a very famous artist colony uh in the 19th uh 60s.
• 1:30
  Isabeau: So wonderful, cute little towns with great restaurants if you ever want to go and visit them.
• 1:35
  Isabeau: So here is our conversation with Daria.
• 1:38
  Isabeau: So you were studying for your exams.
• 1:40
  Isabeau: Did you go and uh take your exam yet?
• 1:42
  Isabeau: Or ask the exam.
• 1:45
  Daria Williams: So yeah, exam is done.
• 1:46
  Daria Williams: So I'm uh and I did all my surveys, so I'm officially qualified.
• 1:50
  Daria Williams: I should get the certification within three weeks.
• 1:53
  Isabeau: Oh, cool beans.
• 1:54
  Isabeau: Yeah, all right.
• 1:56
  Isabeau: Is Emma Emma can you hear us?
• 1:58
  Isabeau: I don't see your face.
• 1:59
  Isabeau: There, I see your face.
• 2:01
  Isabeau: I can't.
• 2:01
  Isabeau: Emma is in Emma.
• 2:03
  Isabeau: This is Daria.
• 2:04
  Isabeau: Daria, this is Emma.
• 2:05
  Isabeau: Emma, Darry and I uh I worked on her mother's farm and then her farm is in New Jersey for like almost what 20 years.
• 2:13
  Daria Williams: Yeah.
• 2:14
  Isabeau: And Emma is in New Mexico where it's hot and there's snakes.
• 2:19
  Isabeau: It's heady and windy.
• 2:20
  Daria Williams: Are you guys have pouring rain in New Hampshire right now?
• 2:23
  Isabeau: Uh yes, it's about 74 degrees and raining, so not 106.
• 2:27
  Isabeau: It's very nice.
• 2:30
  Isabeau: No, we've had unreasonably actually it popped up on my Facebook feed.
• 2:34
  Isabeau: It was 100 degrees this time last year.
• 2:36
  Isabeau: We had a heat wave in the beginning of summer uh last year.
• 2:40
  Isabeau: It's been a high of 80 for like the past you know, it's been glorious.
• 2:44
  Daria Williams: Yeah, well, last week was horrifying here during the training.
• 2:47
  Isabeau: It was 90 something every day, but and yeah, the training was in Pennsylvania or over in no Mercer County Equestrian Center.
• 2:54
  Isabeau: All right, do you want me to start with the uh the question?
• 2:57
  Isabeau: Okay, so what drew you to the Agala program in the first place?
• 3:02
  Daria Williams: Well, I started working at the carrier clinic in Belmade, New Jersey a little over two years ago.
• 3:07
  Daria Williams: And um, I took a job there as the barn care coordinator.
• 3:12
  Daria Williams: So I take help take care of the animals and I do like all the ordering, but in the meantime, part of the reason was is to learn about equine-assisted psychotherapy.
• 3:21
  Daria Williams: So I've just been watching and I've been helping with some groups and some of the corporate team building events.
• 3:27
  Daria Williams: I basically decided that I really wanted to continue my education and become more part of the program and more part of the career.
• 3:36
  Daria Williams: And eventually I want to be able to start this program on the farm I live at now in New Hall, Pennsylvania.
• 3:44
  Isabeau: Awesome.
• 3:46
  Daria Williams: So and then luckily, yeah, luckily there was a training opening right down the road in Pennington, New Jersey, at the Mercer County Equestrian Center.
• 3:53
  Daria Williams: So it just kind of all fell into place.
• 3:55
  Daria Williams: Nice.
• 3:57
  Isabeau: So they ran a certification program for the Igala.
• 4:00
  Isabeau: They ran a certification, uh, what is it, weekend?
• 4:04
  Daria Williams: It was a five-day program.
• 4:06
  Daria Williams: Oh Wednesday through Saturday, 8 30 to 4 30.
• 4:11
  Daria Williams: Sunday was just like 8 30 to 12 30.
• 4:14
  Daria Williams: But it's a full-time program, so you have to be able to do that, but you need some prerequisites before.
• 4:19
  Daria Williams: So you need about 6,000 hours to become an equine specialist, which is what I trained for.
• 4:26
  Daria Williams: So that's part of the team for the gala model.
• 4:29
  Daria Williams: You need 6,000 hours of hands-on equine experience, it can be a mix of different things, it could be but you need to to really have a long-term background in the equine industry in some forms, and then you have to continue on with at least 20 hours of continued education every year after that.
• 4:51
  Daria Williams: Gotcha.
• 4:56
  Daria Williams: And that can be a mix of different things.
• 4:57
  Daria Williams: Yes.
• 4:59
  Daria Williams: And then for the Agala model, when you do a therapy session, you need an equine specialist, which is what I got certified for, that works with a mental health technician to be able to host one of these therapy sessions.
• 5:12
  Daria Williams: So you work as a team, and then with it with the horses, which are part of the team.
• 5:15
  Daria Williams: So we're all called co-facilitators.
• 5:18
  Isabeau: Okay, yeah, all right, cool.
• 5:21
  Isabeau: Um what surprised you the most about the horses, how the horses respond in a therapeutic setting?
• 5:27
  Daria Williams: Because you're coming at from it as a horse professional, bar leader, spider, and it's it is interesting, and more the stories I've heard because I haven't been able to do it enough.
• 5:39
  Daria Williams: And what the the uh Marion and Tracy Hooper, the instructors for the program, the stories they've told are unbelievably intriguing.
• 5:48
  Daria Williams: And especially it's when you know your own animals that you really can see a difference of their reaction to different clients.
• 5:55
  Daria Williams: So once I have a team set up, it's gonna be very intriguing to see how the horses react to different people compared to what they're going through.
• 6:06
  Daria Williams: So, because the horses, I mean, that's part of the reason why we have the horses, is that they have an innate ability to read emotions and and you know, real feelings of people that we can't see as humans as well.
• 6:21
  Daria Williams: So, I mean, I've noticed it a little bit, the carrier.
• 6:24
  Daria Williams: Um, we have groups, and I watch the kids, and you know, sometimes the horses react to a different girl in the group and they'll spend more time with that person.
• 6:35
  Daria Williams: Sometimes, if there's a quieter person, they're scared, the goats.
• 6:38
  Daria Williams: We have so we have two goats, too many donkeys, and two horses.
• 6:42
  Daria Williams: And sometimes the goats are interesting because they'll if they see a girl standing by themselves, the goats will go talk to one of the girls.
• 6:51
  Isabeau: So that's very cool because that's what you know, the humans' reaction to the animal is what trainers like Warwick Schiller and the emotional horsemanship and uh clicker training people try to get people to start to recognize is the feedback that the animals give in the uh training process.
• 7:09
  Isabeau: But in traditional training, it's it's one of the most difficult things to teach people is to read the feedback that the animals are giving you.
• 7:16
  Isabeau: So this program you have entirely, yeah.
• 7:20
  Daria Williams: And the training about that was um exactly how to be able to do that and also to help relate it to the client to continue their story.
• 7:32
  Daria Williams: So you're not looking at you're looking at um uh external patterns and shifts of behavior of the animals, and you're trying to relate it to their story, but you have to be able, you need that equine experience to kind of read what the animals are doing to just help aid with that kind of reaction.
• 7:52
  Daria Williams: But but it's all and it changes all the time, so you just have to and you learn every time from that as well.
• 7:57
  Daria Williams: You learn from the horses, you learn from the clients, and it goes back and forth.
• 8:00
  Isabeau: And yep, yep, yeah, all right, cool.
• 8:03
  Isabeau: That leads well into my next question.
• 8:05
  Isabeau: Was that is uh, how is your professional background in the horse industry?
• 8:09
  Isabeau: How does that is does that help you in this current training, or is it go?
• 8:14
  Isabeau: Uh are you learning things that go against the way you would have done things in the past, or is this just an enhancement on stuff that you learned in the past?
• 8:23
  Daria Williams: For me, it's an enhancement, only because I've done so many different things in the horse industry and from everything from pony club and the natural horsemanship stuff we've worked with and starting young horses and and dealing with a large I had a large boarding facility, so dealing with the different clients and interacting with so many other different horses, where I've had more experience just from you know interacting and dealing with so many different horses.
• 8:54
  Daria Williams: I've uh dealt with so much of their behavior in different ways.
• 8:57
  Daria Williams: This is kind of enhancing it.
• 8:59
  Daria Williams: And you know, dealing with lots of interesting people along the way too.
• 9:05
  Daria Williams: You know, but maybe in this way I can tie it all together.
• 9:10
  Daria Williams: So I have uh you know medical training, educational training, but life skills and um so this kind of will maybe tie it all together.
• 9:21
  Isabeau: Yeah, yeah, yes.
• 9:23
  Isabeau: So um, so what are you learning about horses that you didn't know before?
• 9:28
  Daria Williams: Because I've always been able to recognize that that horses have that extraordinary talent and that you can't lie to them.
• 9:36
  Daria Williams: And yes, so not I I'm just more intrigued to to watch the horses because they are really so in so smart.
• 9:48
  Daria Williams: I want to see them in different situations that I have never seen before.
• 9:52
  Daria Williams: Yeah, like I've seen them more in a traditional sense, you know, with clients and boarders and trainers and and different levels of people, but to see them in this setting, it's gonna be very interesting.
• 10:04
  Daria Williams: Yeah.
• 10:05
  Isabeau: No, I can imagine it would be interesting.
• 10:07
  Isabeau: I mean, for people who've got a lot of experience with horses, you learn over time.
• 10:11
  Isabeau: That's what reading horses means.
• 10:13
  Isabeau: You know, you you learn what their body language means and their psychology.
• 10:17
  Isabeau: The tricky part is getting the people who work with them to be able to read their language too.
• 10:23
  Daria Williams: And many different ways, and it is yeah, if you have a strong background in horses, you kind of have to let that go a little bit.
• 10:32
  Daria Williams: You have to kind of go back to the basics and just read their behavior, yeah.
• 10:40
  Daria Williams: So you have to lose a little bit, and that's a little hard to accept in a way, and even safety for a way, because he galas all on the ground, and a lot of people that come to these therapy sessions have no experience with horses, so you know, you it's called an apostrophe S when you're bringing in your own um self-awareness or or worries, you know, instead of just letting it happen and just go back to the basics, which is tough to do because of horse people, we like to talk and we like to teach people about horses and we want to be able to like, no, don't touch their hind end, or no, you know, like you want to jump in too much.
• 11:22
  Daria Williams: But sometimes some of those mistakes the clients make actually teaches them more, so you have to really kind of control your inner horsey control self and just sort of gotcha, see what happens.
• 11:37
  Isabeau: Yes, no, I there have been on I've seen online at times people pop up horse barn owners moderately horrified because they agreed to host uh some kind of on-the-ground equine facilitated work, and the uh person in charge will take people out into the field, and there'll be people wandering around the field with the horses loose.
• 11:56
  Isabeau: And the horse owner, the farm owners not entirely sure they're thrilled with what they're saying.
• 12:02
  Daria Williams: Yeah, but it is slightly terrible.
• 12:06
  Daria Williams: Um, but you have to kind of let it go, but you have to watch kids in every direction and see what's happening on, and the goats have horns and donkeys kick and horses bite, and that so it's a lot, it's it's slightly terrifying.
• 12:27
  Daria Williams: And yeah, when even in the training, they took us out to this field, you don't know, even as e as an equine specialist.
• 12:34
  Daria Williams: But I don't know these horses, I don't know how, but it is they're gonna get stepped on.
• 12:39
  Daria Williams: Somebody was sitting on the ground.
• 12:40
  Daria Williams: Do you tell them to stand up?
• 12:42
  Daria Williams: But you know, somebody was sitting on the grass and the horse crawls right up to their face.
• 12:46
  Daria Williams: So do you jump it?
• 12:47
  Daria Williams: Or it yeah, it's it's it'll be a learning experience to be able to balance all that, yeah.
• 12:54
  Isabeau: Oh, so that's part of your job as the equine, the equine person is that you're supposed to manage if people are doing something that's too dangerous, yes, and you're supposed to be able to so you you really have to when you work with your other team member, your mental health technician, um, health professional, you really need to have meetings with them and kind of set some goals and like have ways to communicate with clients, like, okay, but you don't want to also, if they look like they're getting into a dangerous situation, you have to we kind of know this as horse people, especially Isabel.
• 13:33
  Daria Williams: Like, if there's an emergency, you don't want to cause more stress and make it worse.
• 13:37
  Daria Williams: If you bring your energy level up, it could make the situation worse.
• 13:41
  Daria Williams: So you have to be able to wait, you know, have a way to communicate with the clients, like, okay, you know, if you've got a uh an adult or somebody um, and they keep, you know, uh hitting the horse or something, you have to have a constructive way to change their direction of thought or their behavior without escalating what's happening.
• 14:03
  Daria Williams: Yes, because if people get in panic, well, then the animals feel it too.
• 14:07
  Daria Williams: Yes.
• 14:07
  Daria Williams: So you need to really kind of make a plan, but you know, in the horse world, things the strangest things will happen when you can't expect it.
• 14:14
  Daria Williams: So yeah, things happen, but the best thing is to have like a you know a plan of attack, you have to know your animals, trust them, you know, as much as you can, and go from there.
• 14:26
  Isabeau: Like it was more exciting than I thought it was going to be.
• 14:30
  Daria Williams: Yeah, no, you take well if you think about it.
• 14:33
  Daria Williams: I mean, if you have it depends what popular, and there's so many different types of populations you can work with, yeah.
• 14:38
  Daria Williams: Uh, but you if you have someone with severe trauma or you work with veterans or kids with autism, um you know, it brings a lot of variables into the situation with loose animals walking around.
• 14:52
  Isabeau: Oh, yes.
• 14:53
  Isabeau: Well, you're leading us right into the next question, which was uh, has working alongside the mental health professionals changed how you think about uh about horses?
• 15:02
  Daria Williams: Oh well, not so much horses, but the people.
• 15:06
  Daria Williams: Okay.
• 15:06
  Daria Williams: So I've been brought it up in the training, and another equine specialist brought agreed with me that to be able to really work with the mental health, plus I have a science brain.
• 15:16
  Daria Williams: I like to learn, I like to, I need information.
• 15:20
  Daria Williams: Um, other people probably can go more on the fly, but I want to be able to have a healthier discussion with the mental health professionals to see what they're looking at.
• 15:29
  Daria Williams: Actually, because they've learned body language more from humans.
• 15:33
  Daria Williams: So, how the humans' brain work, all the different types of disorders, keywords, what they're looking for in the conversation of the client, their behavior, you know, all those things, so that I can help read what the person's doing relating to the horses, because it's all supposed to go back out towards the horses.
• 15:52
  Daria Williams: Because normally, if you do therapy, you're just sitting in a room.
• 15:56
  Daria Williams: So the whole point of this is to kind of change that perception to use the horses.
• 16:01
  Daria Williams: So that's why this teamwork mentality of it works a lot better.
• 16:06
  Daria Williams: But I definitely need to learn more about humans, generally speaking.
• 16:11
  Isabeau: Gotcha.
• 16:12
  Isabeau: No, that so it sounds like this training, this five-day training was just the uh the beginning.
• 16:17
  Isabeau: This is just oh, yeah.
• 16:18
  Daria Williams: No, it's a continue.
• 16:19
  Daria Williams: Yeah, no, there's so much more to do.
• 16:21
  Daria Williams: Yes.
• 16:22
  Isabeau: Oh boy, wow.
• 16:23
  Isabeau: All right.
• 16:24
  Isabeau: So uh, so what are your goals now that you finished the five-day course and you passed your uh your test?
• 16:29
  Isabeau: What is the uh next step?
• 16:31
  Daria Williams: Well, the next step is to have beings at the carrier to see where I can assist to expand the program there and maybe do it more days.
• 16:40
  Daria Williams: But because the problem is at the carrier, too, we don't have a covered arena or covered area, so it's weather plays a part of if we can have enough sessions, um availability of drivers.
• 16:54
  Daria Williams: They always they always are short on mental health professionals, you know, lack of staff.
• 17:00
  Daria Williams: Sometimes if the kids are in lockdown, so but they want to incorporate the program more.
• 17:06
  Daria Williams: So if they have me added onto the team plus Marianne, we can expand it more at the carrier and come up with new ideas of how to make that happen and then start the program here at West End Farm in New Hope.
• 17:19
  Daria Williams: But I still have to do, I need to get insurance and liability release forms.
• 17:25
  Daria Williams: I've talked to like two mental health professionals that that can work with me, but I might have to find other ones.
• 17:32
  Daria Williams: Um, but I have actually have three now.
• 17:35
  Daria Williams: There are possibilities, and then you know, do all the advertising, marketing, website, Facebook page, you know, all those logistics.
• 17:45
  Daria Williams: All that and find and find animals and find the animals, minor details.
• 17:49
  Isabeau: Yes.
• 17:50
  Isabeau: Well, I mean, I imagine the animals wouldn't be too hard.
• 17:53
  Isabeau: There's always people looking animals, they're gonna be really easy.
• 17:55
  Daria Williams: I've got plenty of people, the you know, return.
• 17:59
  Daria Williams: But I also want to find animals that I want to work with too.
• 18:02
  Daria Williams: Yeah, so I mean I can get a lot of free ones, but I want to be able to go meet them because I might have them for a lot of years, and I want to, since I do know horse personalities, I want to find ones that I've horses that I find intriguing.
• 18:13
  Daria Williams: They're all have to be friendly and safe to a certain extent, but also that I'm gonna find intriguing to work with, you know, and it's gonna be a little tough because I'm not gonna be able to know them for that long, but yeah, but we innately kind of get a sense, like you know, yeah, some horses are not so interested in people, and some horses are very interested in people, and so you kind of need like a a middle of the road horse, gotcha, but a smarter, you know, I don't know.
• 18:42
  Daria Williams: But the universal, I'm sure, will send me the right animals, and worse comes to worse, if they don't it can a lot of the professionals say, like, you'll know if the horses like to do the work, you know, or if they're even in the mood that day, you know, you could read them, so it'd be nice to have a mix of horses too, so you can change them out or eat I don't know, but um yeah, and and if some don't work, I could maybe re-home them and find new ones and yep, yep, gotcha.
• 19:10
  Isabeau: Well, I'd imagine there's so many horses in that area at uh Hunterdon, New Jersey, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
• 19:16
  Isabeau: Uhlomeration of counties is so huge, you'd probably be able to follow it.
• 19:20
  Daria Williams: And it also gives yeah, and it gives retired horses like a new purpose in life and then activity.
• 19:27
  Daria Williams: And if they like it instead of just sitting in the field doing nothing, then they get attention and you know, something different, and you know, so that's kind of fun.
• 19:36
  Isabeau: Yeah, no, some retired horses, especially in that area, retired show horses, they're used to a lot of activity, so they get people taking them out and doing stuff, and when people try to retire them, sometimes they don't do to do well.
• 19:48
  Isabeau: Yeah, no, they're not attention.
• 19:50
  Isabeau: They're they're they're used to attention.
• 19:52
  Isabeau: Cool.
• 19:53
  Isabeau: So uh that carrier you work out that's uh what a residential mental health uh facility residential for uh teenage girls.
• 20:02
  Daria Williams: So some girls live there long term, but there are there's acute adults that only they're sort of for a month.
• 20:09
  Daria Williams: Okay.
• 20:09
  Daria Williams: Um, there's so there's a couple different words.
• 20:13
  Daria Williams: There's the elderly don't really come out, but there's also the Blake, the uh D tax rehab center.
• 20:18
  Daria Williams: So those clients are, but they're adults, so they're just for 30 days as well.
• 20:22
  Daria Williams: Um, so we work with them, we work with the residential girls, the short-term girls, the acute adults, which are short-term.
• 20:31
  Daria Williams: And now they just built a new third.
• 20:33
  Daria Williams: Well, they're putting 30 million dollars in the facility, and the new building just opened up like two weeks ago that's gonna start housing kids as the young of as uh as young as eight.
• 20:43
  Daria Williams: So long-term residents.
• 20:45
  Daria Williams: So that's we have to have a lot of meetings about that because changing from teenagers to eight-year-olds is a whole nother story.
• 20:54
  Daria Williams: So I'm not really sure how that's gonna fall into place, but that'll be down the road.
• 20:59
  Daria Williams: So we might have to start having eight, nine, ten, and eleven 12-year-olds at the barn.
• 21:05
  Isabeau: Oh wow, that'll be exciting.
• 21:09
  Daria Williams: Yes, that'll that'll be different.
• 21:11
  Daria Williams: I mean, teenage girls are hard enough, but yes, eight, nine-year-olds, wait, and it's a mix of mental, it's behavioral problems, it's it's trauma, it's suicidal teenagers, it's um sex trafficking kids, it's a mix of every type of trauma, schizophrenic kids, uh uh uh borderline personality disorders.
• 21:36
  Daria Williams: So when you're working with it's uh everything, it covers the entire gamut of mental health issues.
• 21:42
  Daria Williams: Yeah.
• 21:43
  Isabeau: Okay.
• 21:44
  Isabeau: Uh Emma said she has uh a question for you.
• 21:47
  Daria Williams: Sure.
• 21:48
  Isabeau: Emma, if you want to pop up, I'll uh I'll shut my uh video down.
• 21:52
  Isabeau: If you want to put your video on, Emma, we'll try to try to make it so we don't tax, tax the internet.
• 21:58
  Emma Jenkinson: Balance it out.
• 21:59
  Emma Jenkinson: Yes.
• 22:00
  Emma Jenkinson: Um, my question was about the therapists that you work with.
• 22:05
  Emma Jenkinson: Do they have to be Egala certified to begin with, or do you lead them through that process and just find therapist if someone was wanting to open a program like that?
• 22:17
  Daria Williams: They have to be e-gala certified.
• 22:18
  Daria Williams: Yes.
• 22:18
  Daria Williams: So they have to go through the training as well.
• 22:20
  Daria Williams: And then you can also get dual certified.
• 22:23
  Daria Williams: So say you're an e-corine specialist, but a lot of people that were at the training said that's very confusing because you're you're looking at the client at the both lenses.
• 22:33
  Daria Williams: So they're like, well, but it helps if you're a mental health uh therapist, it is good to have horse knowledge that helps.
• 22:42
  Daria Williams: But when you're in that team role, it's better to stay each in your own role instead of like overlapping.
• 22:49
  Daria Williams: So yeah, I can see that.
• 22:51
  Daria Williams: Yes, I can see where it helps either direction.
• 22:54
  Daria Williams: But yeah, they have to get completely certified on their own.
• 22:57
  Daria Williams: And then um, and then you can work together.
• 23:00
  Daria Williams: Yep.
• 23:01
  Emma Jenkinson: Cool.
• 23:01
  Emma Jenkinson: And so do you just like look on a directory to try to find some in your area?
• 23:07
  Daria Williams: Yeah, they have on the egalit network, they have a really on the website, they have a good um networking page.
• 23:14
  Daria Williams: You can look for people that are certified, locations already have programs set up.
• 23:18
  Daria Williams: We also have networking phone calls that you can reach out to other people.
• 23:23
  Daria Williams: Um, even have one in uh this Thursday that's for Delaware.
• 23:27
  Daria Williams: So it's a kind of network in that direction through through the organization.
• 23:32
  Daria Williams: They're very they are very organized, and they will help you do business plans, models, um, you know, even internationally.
• 23:41
  Daria Williams: So you can get a lot of information from their website.
• 23:44
  Daria Williams: Everyone's very helpful, they're all trying to make everybody succeed and work together.
• 23:50
  Daria Williams: And um, I've already talked to a few people around here that um, well, the one mental health technician, she's not certified, but she's she's a horse person, so I'm sure she would want to do it, and she lives right around the corner.
• 24:03
  Daria Williams: And then there's a girl, Sue, that used to live at my farm right above Isabow for seven years, and she was certified back in the day, but probably after like get re-certified.
• 24:14
  Daria Williams: Um, but she's interested, and there's a woman that was at the training with me, she kind of wants to be part of the program.
• 24:21
  Daria Williams: She lives a little bit more towards the shore, so yeah, it's kind of yeah, very cool.
• 24:27
  Emma Jenkinson: And then how I mean, I'm sure it's unique for everybody who gets together to do this, but how do you guys split up the payment?
• 24:35
  Emma Jenkinson: Because there's like a therapist fee, and then there's like a fee for you as a fourth person.
• 24:40
  Daria Williams: Right.
• 24:41
  Daria Williams: So, what they're doing is if you come to someone's farm, the fee gets split three ways.
• 24:46
  Daria Williams: So the mental health uh professional gets a third, the equine specialist gets a third, and then the barn gets a third.
• 24:53
  Daria Williams: It looks like the going rate is between 250 to $300.
• 24:58
  Daria Williams: Some people are doing it for an hour, some are doing 90 minutes.
• 25:03
  Daria Williams: And then, but then it's different if you do groups.
• 25:06
  Daria Williams: So the best way to do to raise more money is to do groups.
• 25:10
  Daria Williams: Plus, you can also apply for a lot of grants.
• 25:13
  Daria Williams: Um, the one uh the girl that I met that runs a program, it's called Gateways, the Malvern PA.
• 25:19
  Daria Williams: She does a lot more grant work money to get some more influx, but she also works with two different prisons, an inner city school in Philadelphia.
• 25:27
  Daria Williams: So you can angle the program yeah, in so many different directions.
• 25:31
  Daria Williams: So the payments are, you know, you could do individual sessions or you could do corporate team building.
• 25:36
  Daria Williams: Marianne, that carrier, she does a lot of work with sports teams now for team building.
• 25:40
  Daria Williams: So yeah, it's kind of all over the place.
• 25:42
  Daria Williams: But generally speaking, it looks like 250 to 300 if it's an individual session.
• 25:48
  Daria Williams: And the insurance has to go through the mental health.
• 25:51
  Daria Williams: That's why you need the mental health therapist there.
• 25:53
  Daria Williams: Insurance will only cover percentage of it.
• 25:56
  Daria Williams: So what you have to do is do like a pay tap, and then you kind of split it, the copay, or their mental health could get paid back from insurance, split the rest.
• 26:06
  Daria Williams: So, yeah, it is a little complicated, but yeah, yeah.
• 26:11
  Emma Jenkinson: It'll work to therapists in the past or and had other programs here who weren't doing Ingala, but they wanted to bring a therapist in for equine assisted therapy.
• 26:21
  Emma Jenkinson: And these were their questions, like how do we how do we split a fee?
• 26:25
  Emma Jenkinson: What's with the insurance?
• 26:27
  Emma Jenkinson: And and so maybe if anybody's looking for that, Igala would be a great resource for them, huh?
• 26:32
  Daria Williams: Oh, 100%.
• 26:33
  Daria Williams: Yeah, they'll help you with the business plan, they'll help you with liability release forms, and um, so that's what I'm gonna kind of work on this week.
• 26:41
  Daria Williams: I have Mary Ann that I work, so I'm lucky, and I told her this the other day because a lot of people that go through this training, they're kind of off on their own.
• 26:48
  Daria Williams: Um but I have a personal mentor that I see two days a week, and I can call her anytime.
• 26:54
  Isabeau: That's that's gonna help me through a lot of it.
• 26:57
  Daria Williams: Nice, yeah, yeah.
• 26:59
  Isabeau: All right, uh, before we let you go, was there anything else you wanted to uh tell folks about the uh the program?
• 27:06
  Daria Williams: Everybody I've talked to, it seems like it really is a needed therapy and a change because everyone's sick of sitting in an office, you know, they're sick of the same repetitive, you know, they they want people need to be outside and do um experiential therapy.
• 27:23
  Daria Williams: And and marriage is like not enough of it.
• 27:26
  Daria Williams: And and I'm just so surprised the response is even we had to do a practice where every person at the training had to be a client, and just seeing how much it touched these people.
• 27:39
  Daria Williams: I mean, I don't know.
• 27:41
  Daria Williams: I mean, people start breakdown crying because nobody gives themselves enough time to just like sit back and do self-care and kind of and you know, just take a breath and rethink what's all going through our crazy brains because everybody is so busy, and um you know, and kids nowadays they don't get outside, they're stuck on screens and they're stuck in the house.
• 28:02
  Daria Williams: So there's one guy that might do a curriculum with screen addicts, and so there just seems to be such a need for it, and I think the community around here is really gonna accept it, and so I'm just kind of really excited to see where it goes.
• 28:15
  Isabeau: All right, I will let you go then.
• 28:17
  Isabeau: Emma, was there anything else you wanted to say before we uh go?
• 28:21
  Emma Jenkinson: No, thanks for for involving me.
• 28:24
  Emma Jenkinson: Oh, okay.
• 28:25
  Emma Jenkinson: Nice to meet you, Emma.
• 28:27
  Isabeau: I'm sorry, I didn't meet you.
• 28:28
  Isabeau: I should have said I said Emma, I kept thinking I should tell Emma I'm gonna talk to Daria, and then five minutes beforehand, I sent her notification.
• 28:38
  Isabeau: Oh, I'm gonna talk to Daria in five minutes so that she was able to catch me.
• 28:44
  Daria Williams: That's good.
• 28:46
  Isabeau: All right, cool.
• 28:46
  Isabeau: Thanks for meeting up to uh chat with me, ladies.