Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / Ep 11: Dr. Ann Hemingway & Kezia Sullivan - Bournemouth University

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Ep 11: Dr. Ann Hemingway & Kezia Sullivan - Bournemouth 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.
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  Here on Equine Assisted World.
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  We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and,
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  established in the equine assisted field.
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  This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be
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  physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have.
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  These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
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  Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show
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  welcome to Equine Assisted World.
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  We have two extraordinarily interesting guests on tonight.
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  We've got Professor Anne Hemingway from the University of Bournemouth and her
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  researcher Kezia Sullivan, who at some point in the not too distant future will,
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  I'm sure, also be Dr Kezia Sullivan.
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  And they have been doing really interesting work in our equine
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  assisted field more than that.
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  Professor ann has been researching what we do for about 12 years now
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  And what's exciting is that not only are they helping to legitimize?
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  In the eyes of government in the eyes of insurance companies and so on and
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  so forth what we do but also they have come up with some rather groundbreaking
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  ways of conducting studies on individual equine assisted programs, which Unlike
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  the usual very torturous way of getting studies done, which involves years
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  and years and years and lots and lots of money and running into all the
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  right contacts and being connected to universities, they found a way to
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  streamline that to make it more efficient.
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  So listen up, because if you are running a program, you might.
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  want to contact these people about the possibility of running
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  a study onto what you do.
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  So this is fascinating stuff.
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  I met and only recently and virtually because Kezia, her
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  assistant had come on a horse boy.
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  training in England.
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  And when we ask people, as we always do in the training, what do you do?
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  Why are you here?
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  And she said, well, I'm a researcher and I, I research, I
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  research equine assisted programs.
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  I sort of pooped my pants and sat down in it because I thought, well, I didn't
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  even know people did that for a living.
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  I thought that was sort of something that happened
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  occasionally to a God like species.
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  Over there somewhere who happens to be well connected.
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  I didn't realize that there were actually people sort of
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  going around and doing this.
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  And I realized that that's how far our field has come.
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  So, without further ado, welcome Anne and Kezia.
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  Professor Anne, can you tell us who you are and why you got into this in the first
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  Ann Hemingway: place?
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  Yes.
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  So, hi everyone.
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  So I'm a professor of public health and well being in the UK, and I
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  run a a center for public health.
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  And I've been around horses all my life.
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  I love horses.
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  I'm passionate about horses.
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  I have my own horses.
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  I love all equines and if I pass something in a field in the car, I break my neck
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  trying to just look at it and see how many there are and what sort of horse
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  or equine they are and it's always been like that for me since I was a child.
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  So that's one reason why.
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  Another reason is I want About 12, 13 years ago I was a Marie Curie funded
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  research fellow that's funded through the European commission, looking at behavior
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  change and obviously behavior change, health behavior change is a massive
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  public health issue, and I'm sure you're all aware of, of that and the amount
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  of research that goes on into how to make us all behave more healthily, eat
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  more healthily, get more exercise and not to smoke and not to drink too much.
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  And to think about our mental health, et cetera.
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  So I was busy doing that across different countries in Europe and I came back to my
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  own university at the time and listened to a PhD student presenting their work,
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  and they ran an equine assisted service on the Isle of Wight in the UK, and in
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  the audience was someone else who was running an equine assisted service and
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  I had a bit of an ah ha moment, and I thought, ah, look at this, this is,
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  this is happening, and this is great.
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  Growing and this is a thing.
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  And I thought how fascinating that people are trying to change behavior
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  using these different modalities.
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  They're trying to change behavior, relationship type
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  behavior, it seemed to me.
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  And as life is all about relationships and connections.
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  I thought this, this has real potential and this is possibly, including horses
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  and humans, means that it's not using what we normally do in public health
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  is to like appeal to someone's better nature to try and get them to change
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  what they're doing or we do what's called nudging where we make small changes
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  and we try to influence their behavior.
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  This is, this seems to, this must be tapping into a different kind of a
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  mechanism and that's, and that's where the took over in my brain, I suppose.
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  And I thought, well, how is that working?
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  What's it doing?
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  Who's it working for?
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  How is it working?
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  And I must have a look at it.
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  So I guess for me, that was when I decided it was fascinating and it was important.
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  And I'd already started to look at cows farming a bit and people having contact
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  with nature and those kind of things.
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  And of course, We're part of nature and so are horses, so I thought
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  this is an extension of the same thing for me, essentially, in
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  many ways, but with this unique creature, this unique being involved.
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  So I guess that's, that was it.
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  That's how it happened for me.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Can I ask you a layman's question?
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  When you say behavioral change, I mean, I think that's the sort of thing where
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  it sounds like a self evident thing, but what does that really actually
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  mean in terms of clinical stuff?
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  What is behavioral change?
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  What is a behavioral change?
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  Yeah, it's
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  Ann Hemingway: changing the way that you respond in a habitual sense, really.
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  So if you've got ways that you respond habits that you have,
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  and those can be, as I say, the traditional health related habits.
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  which are diet, exercise, smoking, et cetera.
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  But they're also very important in terms of people's mental health.
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  It's about how you relate to others.
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  And the types of behavior you exhibit in everyday life, which can be, which
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  can hugely benefit you as an individual, or, or can really not benefit you, and
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  can become quite negative in terms of your in relation to children and young
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  adults, in terms of your development.
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  You know, it's important to remember that young children experience the world as
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  an environment full of relationships.
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  That's how they experience it, as a network of relationships.
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  And if these relationships affect all aspects of their development, so
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  if there's behaviors which challenge or interrupt or don't enable them
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  to develop those relationships, then that has a massive impact on their
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  development and their opportunities.
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  As they grow up, and for the rest of their lives, essentially.
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  So I guess, behaviour change is about changing habits, and that can be habitual
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  habits in terms of eating, drinking, exercising, but it can also be habitual
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  habits around how we interact with others.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, that was a really good explanation.
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  So it's basic.
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  So I guess to a layman such as myself, it would obviously lend itself to things
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  like addiction and eating disorders and perhaps violent behaviors or
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  dysfunctional or antisocial behaviors.
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  But I could see how it could also.
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  Would you say, could it also be used to impact your relationship with
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  yourself that that there's how we relate to the world around us, but
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  you can never really separate that, of course, from what's going on internally.
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  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, totally.
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  It's about how we view ourselves and how important or unimportant
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  we see ourselves as being.
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  Okay.
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  And you were,
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  Rupert Isaacson: you were already measuring this, this
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  was already your, your job.
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  Yeah,
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  Ann Hemingway: well, behaviour change was very much my area that
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  I was working in, in public health.
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  My PhD focused on that in deprived communities a long time ago.
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  And and, and showed me that, again, It was all relational.
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  It was all about context.
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  And often people's relationships massively impacted on their behavior and vice
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  Rupert Isaacson: versa.
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  Okay.
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  Okay.
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  What would you say, before we move on to how you ended up?
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  seeing the value of this with equine.
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  And of course you say you've been a lifelong, you know, horse woman and
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  horse lover and I, like any of us, I guess, who have been with horses all
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  our lives, we know that that's all about relationship because you know,
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  what else have we got, but relationship with our horse and, and so on.
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  Sometimes we're doing it well, sometimes we're doing it not so well.
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  But we, we, we've all observed this, I think.
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  But.
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  The looking at it in more detail as you have, what would you say are
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  the most important components of an individual's ability to relate to others
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  within our species to ensure a sort of functional, happy, healthy life?
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  What are there some like prime markers?
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  Yeah,
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  Ann Hemingway: I mean, I think what we've found so far is calmness without
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  any doubt and also being able to understand the other's point of view
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  or try to understand the other's
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  Rupert Isaacson: point of view.
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  Okay, so, so what, what psychologists would call theory of mind and forceful
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  use of understanding that other people think something differently to you?
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  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, so, and others would call it empathy, you know, so
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  you're thinking that others might not have understood, they might not
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  have the same views as you, for sure.
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  And I think calmness and, and empathy or, or understanding
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  the other's viewpoints are both absolutely crucial for relationships.
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  And seeing yourself as important enough to have a relationship with.
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  You know, all about those, those issues of kind of self worth,
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  confidence and self esteem.
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  For sure are also very, very relevant.
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  And I think you know, you, you need to be curious about others as well.
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  And I think that's where the horses help us too, because we have, we have something
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  called involution rather than evolution, which anthropologists talk about.
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  And involution is about having a fascination with other species.
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  And I'd say as humans, we know we've got that because we have endless evidence.
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  As I believe that horses may have some of that too.
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  Rupert Isaacson: That's a word I hadn't heard before.
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  Thank you for that.
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  Involution, the fascination and curiosity about other species.
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  Yeah.
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  Okay.
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  That makes perfect sense to me, because as you may know, I've spent a lot of time
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  living with hunting and gathering people.
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  And of course, seeing people, seeing the sort of human
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  original blueprint, if you like.
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  And of course, you can't separate that from a constant,
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  that way of life, that culture.
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  To be successful in it, you have to be.
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  Incredibly curious and therefore knowledgeable eventually about other
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  species of animal and plant because that's what you're living from.
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  Do you think that although presumably our species has this innately, do you
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  feel that these sort of generations and generations and generations
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  of separation from nature, i.
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  e.
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  other species, that is nature, right?
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  Do you feel that that is what has impacted us?
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  to the point where we seem to be needing these types of mental
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  health interventions at all.
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  What do you think is behind it?
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  Why do you think we are at this stage where mental health is now
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  such a prevalent conversation?
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  What's happened?
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  What's gone wrong with us?
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  That we've lost our involution, or that we've separated ourselves from it?
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  Ann Hemingway: Well, I don't know if Kase would agree.
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  I'll give her a chance to have a go as well.
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  But I think that we are very separated from other beings and we
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  have a bit of an obsession with that with each other to the exclusion
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  of the rest of the planet really.
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  We also have a bit of an obsession with how people feel about things,
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  which is very important, but we also need to consider the evidence.
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  You know, about and research and the evidence about what's
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  happening in our world.
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  And I think we've become very inward looking.
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  Our separation from nature has made us become very inward looking.
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  And we do tend to look in at other humans rather than out at other
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  species and the rest of the world, etc.
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  And if you're a scientist, you, some forms of science force you to do that.
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  But you always have to, you always, in science, have to
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  look at a global perspective.
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  You're always looking at the evidence from South America or from Africa or
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  wherever, as well as your own country.
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  It kind of makes you do it.
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  And I think increasingly we're getting more inward looking, unfortunately,
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  and a bit obsessed with, with with the minutiae of, of interaction which puts a
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  lot of pressure on people to be perfect.
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  And I think that And that's what horses do.
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  Horses will take away your ego.
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  Horses are not interested in perfection.
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  They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
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  They're interested in that relationship.
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  They're interested in knowing, in knowing how you feel and how you feel about them.
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  First and foremost and what your intentions are rather than
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  whether you're perfect or not.
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  So that's why they're so good for us.
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  Sorry Kez, I'll
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  Rupert Isaacson: let you have that one.
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  I just want, just before we go to Kez, I just want to quote this
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  back to you, what you just said.
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  Horses don't care what you know.
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  Or how much you know, until they know how much you care.
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  Yeah.
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  That's great.
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  Is that yours?
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  Or did you get that from someone?
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  Ann Hemingway: No, I'm sure I've stolen that from someone.
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  Okay, that's brilliant.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I'm going to nick it immediately now.
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  Horse
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  Ann Hemingway: person.
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  I'm sure I've, I've nicked that.
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  But I think it's, for me, that's what it's all about.
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  Because it, you know, you need to show, you need to show care
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  through your body to the horses.
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  all the time from start to finish, from the moment their eyes meet
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  yours, you need to show that you care and that you're acknowledging them.
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  And that teaches us a massive lesson about relationship.
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  Which I think again, and also because we're online, we forget about that
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  embodied part of relationships, which is so, so important and which we lost a
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  bit during COVID and doing online things like this, where we, it's harder to
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  work out what the intentions of others.
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  are without seeing their body language.
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  And it's a really important for us.
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  Rupert Isaacson: I agree.
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  I couldn't agree more.
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  There's a lot here I want to, to, to go back to Kez, what got you into doing this?
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  Why, why are you researching this field?
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  And what, what do you feel about this?
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  Do you, do you feel that the separation from nature, which we know has
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  been going on since, well, at least the industrial revolution, but do
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  you think it's accelerated lately?
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  Do you, do you think we're at a crisis point?
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  What's motivating you?
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  Kezia Sullivan: Sure.
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  So I'll start with, I'll start with the kind of nature aspect, I suppose, because
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  I really agree with Anne there that, If we lose the kind of holistic communication,
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  we start to run into difficulties.
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  And we have this idea with care of, you know, a good enough mother
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  and nobody is perfect, right?
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  Nobody's perfect.
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  succeeding in showing a perfect amount of care all the time.
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  But it is that kind of staying out of the minutiae and able to look at
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  the whole, look at the intent, look at the kind of those aspects of it.
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  And then I think we're kind of automatically more embodied.
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  So we're looking internally with an external lens because we're saying,
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  well, what am I picking up from the environment and the context?
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  So we might be quite sensory and inward looking.
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  But much less of this kind of top down, from the mind, sort of
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  over analytical type of aspect.
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  So, yeah, when you're in nature, it's, of course, such a sensory experience, right?
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  Because everything is, you know, either hot or cold or damp or thorny, and I
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  think that might be accounting for it.
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  The less we go out in nature, the less we're integrating that sensory experience.
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  Rupert Isaacson: And you, what, you, one hears the word embodied,
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  you just used that term, embodied.
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  It's one of these terms one hears.
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  You think, oh yeah, yeah, embodied.
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  Actually, I don't know what that means.
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  What does embodied really mean?
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  Kezia Sullivan: So I think different people potentially categorize it
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  differently, but the way that I was using it there was kind of willing to listen
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  to what is coming up from the body.
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  So there's this idea of the three brains.
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  We have the gut brain, the heart brain, and the brain brain.
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  So able to pick up all of the signals that we get, kind of body as tuning
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  Rupert Isaacson: fork.
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  Okay.
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  That was a really good answer.
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  I've just got you what you said is willing to listen to
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  what's coming up from the body.
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  I'm willing to listen to the three brains.
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  I think one of the pieces of now sort of neuroscientifically accepted wisdom
• 18:32
  that still may not be so widely known is that As I know you guys know that
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  the heart and the brain and the gut are all actually composed of neurons
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  and that this is something which was not so well known a few years ago.
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  Now we sort of take it for granted, but that if we've got neurons in
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  the brain, neurons in the gut and neurons in the heart, then presumably
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  it's one system rather than two.
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  Some sort of hierarchical system or the intellect as the only thing that counts.
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  But okay, so back to the question then of why do you think it's reached a point
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  where people like you and Anne are getting support from institutions to go out and
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  research something that embodies and looks at relationship and, and behavioral
• 19:22
  change through specifically horses.
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  What's happened?
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  in the last 5 10 years that's making these institutions go, well,
• 19:30
  actually, yeah, people like Kez and Ann, we sort of need to fund them.
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  So
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  Kezia Sullivan: I'd love to hear from Ann on this, but my, my first thought
• 19:38
  is that in this case, theory is kind of following practice, because people
• 19:43
  have been very successfully using these interventions for quite a long time now.
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  And there's so much need that people, you know, they're having
• 19:51
  to start using them even when the evidence might not be there yet.
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  So kind of, of course, the.
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  Of course, the ability to research it will follow that.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Maybe then back to Anne, why do you think that the
• 20:04
  institutions though are now suddenly, because I remember when I was at the
• 20:09
  beginning with Horseboy and we were getting poo pooed, you know, everywhere
• 20:14
  even though from the get go we were affiliated to the University of Texas.
• 20:18
  I think we did our first study in 2013, I think with the first study was
• 20:23
  published on us, but yet, you know, people still treated us as if we were.
• 20:27
  Just a bunch of hippies and it's actually true We are just a bunch of hippies But we
• 20:30
  just happen to be a bunch of hippies that we're doing something that seemed to work
• 20:34
  and the neuroscientists eventually came in and explained Why but what's changed now?
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  Why have we left the hippie margins and why are we entering the
• 20:45
  mainstream of science with this now?
• 20:48
  Ann Hemingway: Well, I think there's a much greater understanding Around the
• 20:51
  horses as well and around mammals and the range of emotions that mammals can
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  have You And the level of awareness that they have, or, or sentience, depending
• 21:00
  on what kind of language you want to use.
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  So there's a very great awareness, much greater awareness and acceptance
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  of the fact that you can have a, a constructive relationship.
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  And that they understand us, our body language.
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  They can understand it if we're clear and calm.
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  And, and that we can understand theirs as well.
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  So that's one side of it, I think for sure.
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  And also, there's several studies which, which show that horses understand human
• 21:31
  body language and emotions and such and respond to them, and that horses
• 21:35
  have different facial expressions, for instance, and those kind of things.
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  So that's part of it.
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  From our, from the human side, I think it's a recognition
• 21:44
  that nature's essential.
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  And that contact with, with horses is part of that access to nature.
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  It's also recognizing that you can't medicalize your way out of
• 21:55
  all the problems that we have.
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  We haven't got a pill, or we shouldn't be giving people pills for things, when
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  we can change things in other ways, in the way that I was speaking about.
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  You know, we can change the way people feel about things, the way they behave.
• 22:10
  how they respond in their lives.
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  We can change it in a, in a myriad of different ways.
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  And one of those that we know about now or we're starting to understand
• 22:19
  is that relationship with horses.
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  And I think people are starting to understand, although it's still quite
• 22:26
  limited, that there's a difference between us and the prey animal.
• 22:30
  And that in that case, we have to, we have to moderate what we do in
• 22:34
  order to be acceptable for the whole.
• 22:37
  And it's not the other way around.
• 22:39
  And that, and that, the way that we modify ourselves is, if you like, practicing
• 22:44
  an effective relationship with another.
• 22:47
  Rupert Isaacson: That's a great quote.
• 22:48
  The way we modify ourselves and just, the way we modify ourselves around
• 22:53
  horses is a great practice for how we need to moderate ourselves around.
• 22:57
  Perhaps, yeah, others, and perhaps especially more vulnerable,
• 23:00
  because that's a great quote.
• 23:01
  Thank you.
• 23:02
  My question though, because I think, I think a lot of us obviously have been
• 23:06
  around horses and, you know, working in mental health and that sort of thing, you
• 23:10
  know, but on the institutional level and on the media level, Something has shifted
• 23:16
  in terms of the, is it just that an old guard has died off, the old codgers have
• 23:21
  just retired, and you know, left room for some new blood in the last 5 10 years,
• 23:26
  or, because it just seems to me there has been a bit of a seismic shift here.
• 23:31
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, there's also a big recognition, as I've said that,
• 23:34
  That health care services are never going to be up to the job of dealing
• 23:38
  with there's never going to be the enough capacity to deal with the
• 23:41
  level of distress that we have now.
• 23:44
  And I know in the UK, we, we have our, you know, mental health services
• 23:48
  that are pretty much overwhelmed with need, particularly in, in,
• 23:53
  in children and young adults.
• 23:55
  And maybe that's not the way to go.
• 23:58
  There's a growing realisation that maybe labelling people and putting them
• 24:03
  in a box forever is not the way to go.
• 24:07
  We need some other strategies.
• 24:09
  which don't label people, which don't force people to share over
• 24:13
  and over their issues that they've got, which can be re traumatizing.
• 24:18
  And that we, we need to try some different approaches.
• 24:21
  But I do think we're in a, we're in a difficult time at the moment because
• 24:25
  I can tell you, We, Kez and I had a paper which was rejected from a journal
• 24:30
  recently because we know that that works.
• 24:32
  So that's not, you know, that's nothing new.
• 24:36
  So we won't publish it, right?
• 24:38
  This is egg clone assisted.
• 24:40
  We know it works, so why do we need to publish anything, you know, that on it?
• 24:43
  And then from the research fund They're almost like a victim
• 24:45
  Rupert Isaacson: of your own success.
• 24:47
  Ann Hemingway: And then, and then from the research funders, they said, well,
• 24:49
  we're not absolutely sure you've got enough evidence that we're going to fund
• 24:53
  a big, you know, big trials in this yet.
• 24:56
  So we're, we're at this odd sort of point.
• 24:58
  Point and I think in some places it's much more accepted than others
• 25:02
  and some types of it are much more Accepted in some places than others.
• 25:06
  In the UK what's growing seems to be much more about Learning, you know, so it's
• 25:12
  kind of learning social skills, social interactions, learning calmness, learning
• 25:18
  to be Empathic, learning to be effective, learning to be assertive, all those kind
• 25:23
  of things And it's not so much what's being funded through local authorities,
• 25:27
  for instance, now is not so much related to writing for the disabled, for instance.
• 25:33
  It's, it's focused more on mental health and behavioral issues, particularly
• 25:38
  in children, young adults to deal with the number of school exclusions,
• 25:43
  the number of youngsters who are struggling building relationships,
• 25:47
  progressing through their education, etc.
• 25:51
  So, yeah, so that seems to be the area that's, that's taking off in the UK more.
• 25:57
  And it, and it can be with, It can be to me, it can be
• 26:01
  with different groups as well.
• 26:02
  People might already have a label, but it will still work.
• 26:05
  Interestingly, it often still works in the same way.
• 26:08
  'cause we're all human beings, we're all in in it together, and
• 26:11
  we're all on this continuum in terms of how effective we are at
• 26:14
  Rupert Isaacson: relationships and things.
• 26:17
  Yeah, it, it, it's interesting to me that I, I guess.
• 26:21
  I'm trying to sort of the journalist in me and the historian in me is looking
• 26:24
  for evidence in what you're saying to like, where did this shift happen?
• 26:29
  And I mean, I think a lot of us could obviously point to COVID
• 26:33
  and what's happened since then.
• 26:36
  But it does seem that I'm just latching onto something you said a few minutes
• 26:41
  ago where you said there's a beginning to be a knowledge that you can't
• 26:47
  medicate your way out of these problems.
• 26:50
  And I think that that to me, I don't, do you agree that that
• 26:55
  maybe has, is, is the great shift?
• 26:57
  I think that when I was first, for example, as an autism dad back in the sort
• 27:03
  of early two thousands, the overwhelming pressure that was put on me and most
• 27:09
  other parents in my position to medicate.
• 27:12
  Now they still do put that pressure on.
• 27:15
  But there was a a sort of assumption among the psychologists, and it wasn't
• 27:24
  really psychiatrists who were who were dealing with the neurologists, I suppose,
• 27:28
  that that was going to be the only way and that and or behavioral therapies.
• 27:32
  And when you say you're changing behavior, or you're interested in
• 27:36
  how to change behavior, and of course that the the behaviorists like the
• 27:40
  ABA people and so on would say, well, we're interested in the same thing.
• 27:43
  But of course, when I looked at ABA with my kid, I found it
• 27:47
  coercive and causing distress.
• 27:50
  So I went away from it.
• 27:51
  But what's the difference then between the programs that you're looking
• 27:59
  at that are changing behaviors and relationship and something as clinically
• 28:07
  or perhaps rigidly structured or as behaviorism, what, what's, what's,
• 28:12
  what's, what's shifted there?
• 28:14
  Yeah,
• 28:14
  Ann Hemingway: we go back to Kez's point about the whole body being
• 28:18
  functioning without this Cartusian split between mind and body.
• 28:23
  We're seeing it as one.
• 28:24
  And we're, we're realizing now, and again, this is happening in science
• 28:28
  to some extent, depending on who you speak to that how, if you're relaxed
• 28:32
  and calm in your body and you begin to, you know, do whatever deep breathing
• 28:37
  or more exercise or whatever it is in your body, then it calms your mind.
• 28:43
  So the mind doesn't only work downwards towards the body,
• 28:46
  the mind is also influenced by what you're doing in the body.
• 28:50
  So if you're practicing becoming calm, in your body, it will calm your mind.
• 28:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 28:59
  So I want to go to some of the studies that you've done and are doing.
• 29:05
  Before that just humor me again with my I'm belabouring this point
• 29:10
  about institutional acceptance, because to the outside eye, we
• 29:14
  know that this is important.
• 29:15
  At what point did the University of Bournemouth said, Yeah, alright Anne, this
• 29:20
  is great, this playing with ponies stuff, it's alright, yeah, we'll support you in
• 29:24
  that, rather than You know, sod off with your silly playing with ponies thing.
• 29:28
  Was, was there a shift with that?
• 29:30
  Did they, was there a stage at which they were saying, Oh, don't be so silly.
• 29:33
  It's just playing with ponies.
• 29:35
  And then they were like, Oh, actually, no, maybe there's some good science there.
• 29:38
  Or were they actually always pretty supportive?
• 29:41
  Well,
• 29:42
  Ann Hemingway: it was more about to be honest, it's, it's almost still slightly
• 29:48
  the case that The big funders, as I mentioned before, are not quite there yet.
• 29:54
  Okay.
• 29:54
  But the smaller funders are there.
• 29:57
  And we've had some funding from the Esme Fairbairn Foundation.
• 30:01
  And From the which foundation?
• 30:02
  Sorry?
• 30:02
  Esme Fairbairn Foundation.
• 30:05
  Anthony.
• 30:06
  Huh?
• 30:07
  Anthony?
• 30:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Sorry, is that Anthony Fairburn?
• 30:11
  Did you
• 30:11
  Ann Hemingway: say Esme?
• 30:14
  How do you spell Esme?
• 30:15
  ESME.
• 30:16
  Oh, Esme.
• 30:17
  Yeah.
• 30:17
  Esme
• 30:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Fairburn.
• 30:18
  Foundation.
• 30:19
  Ann Hemingway: Foundation with the horse course.
• 30:22
  Okay.
• 30:22
  And we've had some, we've had some seed corn funding from
• 30:25
  my university now as well.
• 30:27
  So I think it's a combination of beginning to have publications which are more.
• 30:33
  You know, publications are kind of the currency of academics, if you like.
• 30:38
  So peer reviewed, international, scientific papers are the
• 30:43
  currency that we work in.
• 30:44
  So once you start to get those papers accepted through a peer
• 30:48
  review, peer review process, then people start to think, oh, okay.
• 30:54
  Because the other thing is that the media are always looking out
• 30:58
  for what's new and innovative in, in terms of those publications.
• 31:02
  So then, then you get then you get approached by the media and the university
• 31:07
  gets very interested in that too.
• 31:09
  So the scientific paper.
• 31:11
  And being approached by the media and asked to write things about it
• 31:14
  in you know, in editorials or in what we call the, we have a publication
• 31:19
  in the UK called The Conversation, which is invites academics to write
• 31:24
  about emerging areas and, and write in a kind of accessible style.
• 31:29
  So, so as it can be understood more broadly than by, by, by scientists.
• 31:35
  Yeah, I mean, I think more grant money will work as always but I
• 31:41
  think it's a basic combination.
• 31:43
  It's actually very like any, any new scientific idea, any new scientific
• 31:49
  idea has to build fraction.
• 31:52
  And some people have looked at this in a systematic way and
• 31:55
  they find about 25, 20, 25 years.
• 31:58
  of produce, starting to produce different types of evidence and building and
• 32:02
  building and building, you'll get through to the point where it's more
• 32:06
  generally, it flips and it becomes more generally accepted even within healthcare.
• 32:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 32:13
  That was a, that was, that was a really good answer.
• 32:15
  So we must be somewhere towards that 20 or 25 year tipping point.
• 32:23
  Okay.
• 32:24
  Well, I'm getting older, so presumably it must be.
• 32:27
  Okay.
• 32:27
  No comment.
• 32:29
  Oh, ouch.
• 32:31
  I believe, I just pulled this knife out of my back.
• 32:34
  And I believe, I believe this knife is yours.
• 32:36
  So, Okay.
• 32:37
  Was there for you a breakthrough study?
• 32:40
  What was the study that made, that sort of got you from That you published,
• 32:49
  that was the first one that made people start to take what you were saying
• 32:52
  and finding out about equinocysts and stuff, seriously, there must have
• 32:56
  been a particular study, that was the
• 32:58
  Ann Hemingway: one.
• 32:58
  There was one in 2015 which looked at young offenders and
• 33:05
  which was in Society of Animals, I think, and it We did a variety.
• 33:10
  We did interviews, we did observation, we did a variety of different data collection
• 33:14
  methods, and we did a small group.
• 33:16
  We put a small group through 25.
• 33:19
  I think it was very small.
• 33:21
  We went to, looked at the re-offending data one year after
• 33:26
  they'd completed the horse course.
• 33:28
  And it was a bigger, bigger reduction than anything that the psychology team
• 33:33
  were, were offering in the prison.
• 33:35
  Percentage wise and, and I just got, and it was very small, but it was
• 33:40
  very, it's a very blunt measure.
• 33:42
  Do you know what I mean?
• 33:43
  It's a bit like the DV, the domestic violence paper that
• 33:46
  Kez and I published last year.
• 33:49
  They're very blunt measures, but it's difficult to argue with that.
• 33:53
  Do you know what I mean?
• 33:55
  So in my mind Yes, it's
• 33:56
  Rupert Isaacson: very hard to argue
• 33:57
  Ann Hemingway: with a blunt measure.
• 33:58
  It's true.
• 33:59
  It's, it's in my mind as I think, Oh, look at that.
• 34:04
  Really interesting.
• 34:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so 2015, young offenders in prisons.
• 34:10
  Yeah.
• 34:10
  That was an equine program, the horse course.
• 34:12
  Yeah.
• 34:13
  And the re offending went down.
• 34:15
  Did you have a percentage, did you get a
• 34:16
  Ann Hemingway: number on it?
• 34:17
  Apparently, we did have a percentage.
• 34:18
  Forgive me, I can't remember.
• 34:19
  It was between 25 and 30 percent.
• 34:21
  Okay, significant.
• 34:23
  Yeah.
• 34:23
  Really significant, yeah.
• 34:26
  So that was kind of a clue for me.
• 34:27
  And I thought, oh, and You know, the most difficult, this Young Offenders
• 34:33
  Institute is dealing with the most difficult young offenders in the UK,
• 34:37
  they get shipped around from everywhere.
• 34:39
  So it was a really challenging group, and I thought, oh my goodness, look
• 34:44
  at that, how interesting is that?
• 34:47
  You know, what is it, what's happening with the horses that
• 34:49
  influences that, you know?
• 34:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Well I'm going to ask you that question in a minute, um, Kez so
• 34:59
  Anne just mentioned a study in domestic violence Can you tell us about that?
• 35:03
  Kezia Sullivan: Yeah, so this was a observational study that we did in 2022.
• 35:10
  And we had data from a local authority with outcomes that they just track anyway.
• 35:16
  So we didn't have to go anywhere near the intervention.
• 35:20
  We just had the data come, so it was all very anonymous.
• 35:25
  And it was a case, it was a case comparison study.
• 35:30
  So we had people in, in the data who had had no intervention.
• 35:36
  And we had people in the data who had had a social worker assigned, but
• 35:39
  nothing, actually, nothing further.
• 35:43
  We had people who had an intervention of some sort, but we
• 35:46
  didn't know what that might be.
• 35:48
  And that could be really varied.
• 35:49
  My understanding is that it could range from sort of having a bit of childcare
• 35:53
  to, you know, all kinds of other things.
• 35:57
  And then we had the people who had attended the intervention, and they
• 36:01
  were also grouped into family groups.
• 36:04
  So we could see whether, you know, a family of six had had one person attend.
• 36:09
  And it was a five day intervention.
• 36:12
  and kind of traipsed through this data set and at the end found that
• 36:17
  not only did it, did the intervention significantly reduce the incidence of
• 36:23
  domestic violence at a one year follow up, but that it actually reduced it by 51%.
• 36:30
  Whereas for context, if you do nothing, if people are not assigned any, you
• 36:36
  know, any help, it, it stays level, but actually goes up very slightly.
• 36:41
  So yeah, it's
• 36:42
  Rupert Isaacson: really important.
• 36:44
  So that's basically effectively a double blind study, right?
• 36:47
  Because you had control group there and.
• 36:50
  Not
• 36:50
  Kezia Sullivan: quite.
• 36:51
  I don't think I think we needed would need to sort of randomize it.
• 36:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, but but but certainly close to that.
• 36:58
  Well, you said the intervention.
• 37:00
  Okay, so the intervention.
• 37:02
  Brought things down by 51 percent a year later.
• 37:05
  What was it?
• 37:06
  Can you say what the intervention was?
• 37:08
  Kezia Sullivan: Yes, it was the
• 37:09
  Rupert Isaacson: horse course.
• 37:10
  It was the horse course.
• 37:11
  So you've mentioned that twice now.
• 37:13
  Yeah Okay, and the horse course as we know Has just received some media
• 37:20
  And awards right in the UK why did you, it's clearly effective, why
• 37:26
  did you look at the horse course?
• 37:28
  What attracted you to that particular intervention?
• 37:32
  Kezia Sullivan: So the reason that I was looking at the horse course is actually
• 37:35
  tied in how I got into this research.
• 37:38
  because when I was looking to start, I'd always wanted to do it.
• 37:42
  I'd always wanted to research pretty much exactly this because I had horses growing
• 37:48
  up and then I went to chicken shed and kind of put, which is an inclusive theater
• 37:52
  and kind of put two and two together.
• 37:54
  So I knew I wanted to be researching this and I went online and looked for
• 38:00
  interventions that had an evidence because I assumed that they would
• 38:04
  be up for doing more research.
• 38:06
  So I've, emailed and they put me in contact with Anne.
• 38:11
  So, to be honest, for me, centres that highlight that they're happy
• 38:17
  to do research is quite a key thing actually, because Okay, that's good
• 38:22
  Rupert Isaacson: to know.
• 38:23
  Listeners, did you prick your ears up at that one?
• 38:26
  On your webpage, have you got something that says, Hey, Kez and Anne, we
• 38:31
  are up for doing research, please.
• 38:34
  Yeah, well, I think that that's a really good point, because I You
• 38:38
  know, when, for example, when I was first starting out with Horseboy, it
• 38:42
  never occurred to me that we would or would not get involved with research.
• 38:46
  We were just very busy doing what we were doing, and that,
• 38:49
  of course, I think is true.
• 38:50
  A lot of people that set up and then get going with programs and then very quickly
• 38:55
  they become busy and overwhelming and, you know, locally successful, generally, for
• 39:00
  the reasons that you've just pointed out.
• 39:02
  But we attracted attention from graduate students who wanted to do studies, but
• 39:08
  they were the ones who approached us.
• 39:10
  It never occurred to us to go out and make approaches and
• 39:13
  it still does not to this day.
• 39:15
  And even though we've had, I don't know how many.
• 39:18
  Studies have been done on it now, and we just had a PhD published
• 39:22
  on movement method, which is our non horse intervention.
• 39:25
  These things have all happened somewhat organically.
• 39:27
  Do you think that it would accelerate the development and legitimization
• 39:33
  of the field if the centers and the programs themselves were now actively
• 39:39
  going and trying to make contact with people like you and saying,
• 39:42
  could you please come and look at us?
• 39:44
  Or would that be overwhelming for you?
• 39:45
  Is that not really helpful?
• 39:47
  Kezia Sullivan: Well, firstly, I'm always happy to be contacted
• 39:50
  and I'm sure so is Anne.
• 39:52
  But a couple of things that I would think of there is firstly, if you're
• 39:57
  a centre, please, and you want to do research, just please don't underestimate
• 40:02
  how shy grad students can be.
• 40:05
  You know, it's not in everybody's.
• 40:08
  I know I was feeling incredibly shy when I reached out to Harriet,
• 40:11
  and I only did it because she had an evidence page on her website.
• 40:16
  So even if you don't have any evidence yet, but you'd love someone to come
• 40:20
  and have a look, just put an evidence page and say, come and have a look.
• 40:25
  Rupert Isaacson: And what would that look like?
• 40:26
  Would it, would it, would, so let's say I was doing it.
• 40:29
  Cause I think, I think this would be really helpful for people that might
• 40:31
  be driving in their cars right now.
• 40:32
  And they've got some amazing pro you know, project going on up in North Yorkshire
• 40:36
  or in South Carolina or wherever, right?
• 40:38
  No one's heard of them, but they know they're doing great work.
• 40:41
  And I know so many places like this.
• 40:45
  Would Would it be worth their while to do something like jot down on a Word
• 40:52
  document what they've seen over, say, anecdotally over a five year period?
• 41:00
  With some specifics and say is it worth looking at this?
• 41:04
  Is it or ought they to be Gathering data in some way that would be helpful for
• 41:13
  you If they then did reach out to you and say well, hey, look we've gathered
• 41:17
  this data in this way That's actually sort of number crunchable for you
• 41:21
  already And if so, what would be the way in which they would gather that data?
• 41:27
  Kezia Sullivan: Well, Anne has a point that a You I hope you won't
• 41:31
  mind me bringing up that there's no need to reinvent the wheel.
• 41:35
  So for a lot of people doing programs which are very similar to each other,
• 41:40
  for example, there's not necessarily a need to evidence every single
• 41:45
  one of them in a different way.
• 41:47
  But, and hopefully Annie will expand on that in a minute for me.
• 41:50
  But the thing I would say about that is when I'm speaking with an
• 41:54
  organization that wants to do research because people quite often reach
• 41:58
  out, I'm always interested in whether they're, who they're working with.
• 42:04
  So what's, what's the kind of clients that they have who's
• 42:07
  coming and what do they need?
• 42:09
  What kind of outcomes are they seeing?
• 42:11
  So for example, a lot of places are improving confidence, but if somebody
• 42:18
  is improving something that's maybe really tough to improve, or maybe
• 42:24
  we haven't necessarily got it well evidenced yet, then I'm always
• 42:27
  interested in evidencing that.
• 42:29
  So I was speaking with somebody recently who worked at a hospice.
• 42:34
  And we know that emotional health and physical health is so closely linked.
• 42:39
  So that's the kind of thing that my ears pick up at, which is like,
• 42:42
  Oh, has anyone looked at this?
• 42:45
  And kind of getting to those outside outcomes.
• 42:48
  And then sure, if they have a good data process already there,
• 42:53
  that's, that's always helpful.
• 42:55
  And there are for sure ways.
• 42:57
  To do that, but I would say it's maybe, it could be a bit of an
• 43:01
  ask to do it if you don't know what you're going to look at yet.
• 43:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, so Anne, what would somebody need to do if they
• 43:08
  were gonna, you know, everyone's busy, you're busy, Kez is busy.
• 43:13
  So if someone, you know, reaches out to you.
• 43:16
  It's a bit like reaching out to a publisher, but you know, they're getting
• 43:19
  a bunch of manuscripts on their desk.
• 43:20
  They've only got so much bandwidth.
• 43:21
  What, in what way would they have gathered data where you would look at that and
• 43:26
  go, Oh yeah, yeah, we could look at that?
• 43:29
  Ann Hemingway: Well.
• 43:30
  As Plus mentioned, we're getting maybe to the point where when people start
• 43:36
  a new intervention, it's worthwhile thinking carefully about whether you
• 43:39
  can use an existing model which has an existing evidence base associated with it.
• 43:44
  Right.
• 43:45
  Because if you do that.
• 43:47
  Then you're if you use that same model and you apply it in the same way,
• 43:51
  then you will get the same results.
• 43:53
  Everyone who, every center in the whole world that does hip replacements
• 43:57
  doesn't have to prove their own value for their own hip replacement
• 44:02
  that they've done in London or, or Los Angeles or whatever it is.
• 44:08
  Because there's a body of evidence already that says hip replacements work, right?
• 44:13
  So that's number one, to start thinking in that way across the
• 44:16
  sector for people starting a new So
• 44:19
  Rupert Isaacson: look for the studies that have already been done basically, the
• 44:21
  bolstered work that you might want to do.
• 44:23
  How would they find those?
• 44:25
  People who have got not the first idea You were talking about horse
• 44:27
  people here, you know, driving around in muddy SUVs, that smell of dogs.
• 44:32
  I mean, you know that, that, that, and they're just worried about can they, have
• 44:35
  they got enough gas to put in that thing?
• 44:37
  Well, he a really,
• 44:39
  Ann Hemingway: yeah.
• 44:39
  How do they, how do they find he, he is a really useful
• 44:41
  organization in terms looking at
• 44:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Heti Heti, HETI.
• 44:46
  Yeah.
• 44:47
  Why is that particularly useful for this?
• 44:49
  Because
• 44:50
  Ann Hemingway: they're in, they're interested in education and research
• 44:52
  for the EQU assisted services.
• 44:55
  So join up, go to meetings and start to look at the literature.
• 45:00
  Now, there is a certain, in some countries I love
• 45:02
  Rupert Isaacson: that you say go to meetings, it's like standing up and
• 45:04
  saying, Hello, my name is Rupert Isaacson and I'm an equine therapist.
• 45:08
  Yeah,
• 45:09
  Ann Hemingway: well, plus you have meetings and online, like, you know, like
• 45:13
  online sessions and all the rest of it, globally, and conferences and things.
• 45:16
  So, so it's, it's an organization, Horses and Education, Therapy International.
• 45:21
  Which is definitely worth looking at there and there are online there are Open
• 45:26
  access journals now and there is open access information all of my studies and
• 45:31
  the work that Kez has been involved in Is getting is freely available Online now.
• 45:37
  Let me
• 45:38
  Rupert Isaacson: let me let me just pause you there.
• 45:39
  I'm going to ask you to develop that So again, you're talking about horsey people
• 45:43
  that do Equine Intervention Programs, you're not talking about academics here.
• 45:48
  So when you say it's open source, people don't even know what that means.
• 45:52
  Well, that's like saying it's, you know, a SpaceX project that Yeah.
• 45:57
  Okay, so what is it?
• 45:59
  What does that mean?
• 46:00
  Ann Hemingway: If they want to look at the scientific literature on something,
• 46:03
  they put a scientific related question.
• 46:05
  into Google.
• 46:07
  So they go into Google and they say, what works for equine assistance?
• 46:11
  You know, what, what programs have that evidence?
• 46:14
  Where, what papers are available?
• 46:15
  And Google will come up with quite a lot.
• 46:17
  And if you're, if you're, what
• 46:19
  Rupert Isaacson: papers are available for equine proving equine intervention?
• 46:22
  Say yes.
• 46:23
  Kezia Sullivan: So
• 46:24
  Ann Hemingway: what, what science has been done around equine
• 46:26
  assisted, what works in equine?
• 46:28
  So a simple Google.
• 46:29
  Yeah.
• 46:30
  Well, we'll come up with some results now as variable, and this is a massive issue
• 46:36
  which I'm involved with Heti about trying to build a better access to science,
• 46:42
  right, equine assisted practitioners.
• 46:44
  And that is a, a, a massive project in itself.
• 46:47
  But some countries like in the UK, my, all my work has to be
• 46:52
  freely available online on Google.
• 46:54
  So you put in Anne Hemingway Equine Assistive, it will all be available and
• 46:59
  you just click on it and it comes up.
• 47:01
  Okay,
• 47:01
  Rupert Isaacson: well that, that, you see, again, to somebody
• 47:04
  like me who's pre chromagnon.
• 47:08
  You know, I when I grew up, Mastodon was still bellowing to
• 47:12
  Mastodon across the primeval swamp.
• 47:14
  So even a Google sometimes can be overwhelming to us.
• 47:18
  I don't know what to put in it.
• 47:19
  But that was very, that was very, Useful to say Anne Hemingway.
• 47:24
  So if someone said, okay, I'm working with mental health in horses in some way.
• 47:30
  And I kind of want to find out what are the studies out
• 47:33
  there that support what I do.
• 47:34
  So I can go to my local authority and say, look, there's a study or two sides.
• 47:38
  They could type in Anne Hemingway.
• 47:40
  Studies.
• 47:41
  Okay, that, that's, that makes
• 47:44
  Ann Hemingway: sense to a brain like.
• 47:45
  And other people who published as well, you know, we're not the
• 47:47
  only hits on the block as it were.
• 47:49
  Right.
• 47:50
  We're doing it.
• 47:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Would other people pop up after you?
• 47:53
  Like, would there be
• 47:54
  Ann Hemingway: any women related?
• 47:55
  If they put in you know, research evidence on equine assisted, yeah,
• 48:00
  other people will pop up as well, but.
• 48:03
  Sorry, Kez.
• 48:03
  Sorry
• 48:04
  Kezia Sullivan: just want to mention there's also a tool called Google Scholar.
• 48:07
  So if you literally Google, Google Scholar, the only results you get back
• 48:13
  will be at least white papers, which means a kind of academic article.
• 48:18
  It might not always have been published in a journal, but it will be.
• 48:23
  linked to the evidence base.
• 48:25
  And then on the right hand side of the screen that comes up, if they're
• 48:30
  open access, there'll be a short little link and you can click into it.
• 48:34
  And if they're not open access, you can still read what's called the abstract,
• 48:38
  which is like a summary paragraph.
• 48:41
  So all of Alan and I's is open access.
• 48:44
  But you can, if you're just having a look, you can potentially read an abstract as
• 48:49
  Rupert Isaacson: well.
• 48:50
  What is a white paper when it's at home?
• 48:52
  You say that it sounds like a sheet, a blank sheet of paper.
• 48:55
  Why do they call it a white paper?
• 48:57
  So
• 48:57
  Kezia Sullivan: like, it's not news.
• 48:58
  It's not PR.
• 49:00
  It's a paper that's been written, usually by an academic to go
• 49:04
  into some detail on a subject.
• 49:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, cool.
• 49:08
  All right.
• 49:09
  So,
• 49:09
  Ann Hemingway: So the other thing is you're, sorry, your original question
• 49:13
  was about what people should do.
• 49:15
  And yeah, they need to look at the site.
• 49:17
  So as we've, you know, as we've shown, that's a thought that can be difficult.
• 49:22
  But equally for me, if people are being sent client referrals by
• 49:28
  someone, why are they sending them?
• 49:30
  What are the outcomes that they've agreed with these referrers?
• 49:36
  Because that mechanism must be happening, otherwise they wouldn't have anyone.
• 49:39
  But if people come on their own, or with their parents or whatever,
• 49:43
  why are they bringing them?
• 49:45
  What is it that they're hoping to achieve?
• 49:47
  You know, do they, do they collect any information?
• 49:50
  Do they have a referral sheet which says, you know, you're, my, this
• 49:56
  person is coming with X, Y and Z?
• 49:58
  And we want you to work on Z please.
• 50:00
  You know what I mean?
• 50:01
  So that kind of, all that type of information is really helpful.
• 50:04
  So this, this,
• 50:05
  Rupert Isaacson: this is my next question then because I'm, I'm, again, I'm
• 50:08
  thinking about all the people driving around in you know, the kind of cars
• 50:13
  that we all drive around in between the chores that we're all doing, thinking,
• 50:16
  okay, this is starting to make sense.
• 50:18
  What kind of format should they collect this information in?
• 50:28
  So, okay, I'm Again, just so people can understand, let's say it was me
• 50:34
  10 years ago or so, and you know, I've got all these autism families
• 50:38
  coming to me and what they're looking for usually was communication.
• 50:43
  They were looking for speech because it was known that my son
• 50:46
  had become verbal in the saddle.
• 50:48
  And then that moved very quickly into their siblings who might have autism.
• 50:56
  Diagnoses like ADHD and that sort of thing or anxiety.
• 51:01
  And we found that what we were doing seemed to work for them too.
• 51:04
  And, but we at that stage didn't know why if I had been wanting to gather data, then
• 51:11
  what format, how would you, how literally, when I got a piece of paper out,
• 51:21
  What should the heading be, the subheading be, what, how should it look?
• 51:25
  So
• 51:25
  Ann Hemingway: you want, what you're looking for in terms of trying to
• 51:28
  evaluate the effect of what you're doing is you want to know what people
• 51:33
  come in with, why they're there with you, and what they leave with.
• 51:39
  Rupert Isaacson: What they come in with, why they perceive the need
• 51:42
  for you, and what they leave with.
• 51:43
  Okay.
• 51:44
  Now, because you could make that up, you could, I could say, well, they
• 51:46
  all, you know, sprouted pink wings and flew off to fairyland and that was it.
• 51:50
  Yeah, yeah.
• 51:50
  So, how do you
• 51:52
  Ann Hemingway: So, in some way, you need to capture that.
• 51:54
  So, ideally, your referral form gives you enough detail about the types of
• 52:01
  people you're getting and the reasons why you're getting them as well as
• 52:05
  age and gender and all those things.
• 52:07
  So, they need some kind of input, yeah, and they need some kind of
• 52:13
  exit assessment, and then, ideally, they need another assessment in
• 52:18
  two or three months at minimum.
• 52:20
  Which is saying, does it, does it last or, you know, the
• 52:24
  minute we got home, it was all
• 52:27
  Rupert Isaacson: what happened when the drugs wore off.
• 52:28
  Yeah.
• 52:29
  Okay.
• 52:29
  So an input and intake for an exit form and then a follow up
• 52:36
  form, perhaps a quarter of a year later or something like that.
• 52:41
  How should those forms be structured?
• 52:43
  Are there other templates that anyone could like download off the internet?
• 52:47
  Do you have to make up your own?
• 52:49
  You
• 52:49
  Ann Hemingway: can make up your own, or I know that Harriet loves to share, Harriet
• 52:53
  Laurie of the Horse Course loves to, you know, one of the reasons for her charity
• 52:56
  is to share everything, so she's probably got her, she might have, so people can,
• 53:01
  if, if, if they've got a query, then, and there's a well established centre, You
• 53:07
  know, that's had studies and done studies, they, they can ask for help, I'm sure.
• 53:12
  But basically what you're
• 53:13
  Rupert Isaacson: looking at is I might just pull you up on a
• 53:15
  reality check with that one.
• 53:16
  It's a massively factional and defensive world, unfortunately.
• 53:21
  And not every organization is willing to help other organizations, sadly.
• 53:25
  And sometimes new kids on the block can be perceived as threats by the older kids.
• 53:30
  So, but it's You know, and I think you, a lot of people are very shy also to
• 53:36
  approach bossy horsey people about stuff.
• 53:40
  But you did say, but you said that the horse course
• 53:43
  Ann Hemingway: are approaching.
• 53:44
  They love to share and they've got a website.
• 53:47
  You just put in the whole, all one word, no gap and it will all come up.
• 53:51
  So the horse course
• 53:52
  Rupert Isaacson: people would be a resource to go to.
• 53:53
  Yeah.
• 53:55
  Ann Hemingway: Some of the other people we're working with now as well, I think.
• 54:00
  Also, wouldn't they, Kez, probably?
• 54:02
  Yeah.
• 54:02
  Kezia Sullivan: Yeah, the people we tend to work with tend, unsurprisingly,
• 54:06
  I guess, to be pretty collaborative.
• 54:09
  Yeah.
• 54:09
  Right.
• 54:10
  That's pretty friendly.
• 54:11
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah.
• 54:12
  So, but I would say if you want to bear the bare minimum, you've got to
• 54:15
  have some biographical information.
• 54:17
  So you want to know kind of where that person lives, what their age
• 54:22
  is, what their gender is, what they, what problems they have and
• 54:27
  why they're being referred to you.
• 54:29
  That kind of basic information.
• 54:33
  And that could
• 54:33
  Rupert Isaacson: just be one sheet.
• 54:34
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, absolutely.
• 54:36
  Yeah.
• 54:36
  Yeah.
• 54:37
  Okay.
• 54:37
  And the
• 54:37
  Rupert Isaacson: exit form similarly.
• 54:38
  And the
• 54:38
  Ann Hemingway: follow form.
• 54:39
  And the exit form.
• 54:40
  Yeah.
• 54:40
  And then you, and then what you need to do is once you start to think and
• 54:45
  maybe brainstorm with your team and talk to your participants and they, if
• 54:51
  they're arriving with parents and carers and all the rest of it, talk to them.
• 54:55
  What do you think they're getting out of it?
• 54:56
  What have they got?
• 54:57
  Even do a little project if you've got a research member of staff, research
• 55:01
  minded member of staff who doesn't mind phoning people up after they've done the
• 55:05
  program and saying, how did it help you?
• 55:07
  What kinds of things did it help you with?
• 55:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Or have you a questionnaire maybe?
• 55:12
  Yeah,
• 55:12
  Ann Hemingway: but then you don't want to do a questionnaire until
• 55:14
  you've spoken to people because you don't know what to put in it.
• 55:16
  Right, so the first thing should always be more open questions, because you
• 55:21
  want to explore, if you don't have that information, those ideas already, you
• 55:25
  want to explore them in a more open way.
• 55:28
  And then you can develop your own tools, or, as I said before, you can
• 55:31
  look around for other people's tools.
• 55:33
  And there's also validated tools, so if people are consistently saying
• 55:37
  to you I think he, you know, this person it feels like they can take
• 55:42
  charge of their life a bit more.
• 55:44
  They have an influence over what happens to them in their lives
• 55:48
  after they attended your program.
• 55:50
  And so then you might want to say, Oh, that sounds like self efficacy
• 55:54
  and I might be able to use a validated tool that already exists.
• 55:57
  You know what I mean?
• 55:59
  So, but until you've had those preliminary conversations or, or a grad student has,
• 56:03
  or, you know, one of your staff members or your team members or whoever it is.
• 56:09
  You don't, you don't know what questions to ask.
• 56:11
  You're kind of in the dark a bit.
• 56:15
  So, we're coming to the conclusion that there are some fairly standard
• 56:18
  areas that are impacted as we've talked about this evening, like calmness,
• 56:24
  like communication, like understanding others points of view, empathy, you
• 56:30
  know, confidence maybe confidence as a learner, you know, to more positive
• 56:35
  relationships, you know, so there's build, we're building up this bank
• 56:39
  of kind of stuff that is, might be being impacted on by Equine Assisted.
• 56:44
  But I would say if you haven't looked at it at all, then you really need to
• 56:48
  do that little bit of preliminary work before you start routinely collecting
• 56:52
  this data, which you absolutely should do.
• 56:55
  But you need to know what to collect.
• 56:57
  Otherwise you could be collecting stuff on X and you're doing Y.
• 57:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 57:02
  No, I get that.
• 57:03
  And I think when people I've known who have tried to do this for their
• 57:09
  programs sometimes over collect.
• 57:11
  And then they present people with just too much bump because, you know,
• 57:15
  you're trying to be a good boy or good girl and get as much as possible.
• 57:19
  So it's less more to some
• 57:20
  Ann Hemingway: degree.
• 57:21
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 57:22
  And I would add to the participants parents, carers, I would add the
• 57:27
  commissioners or the referrers, you know, who, who is sending people to you?
• 57:32
  What do they want to see?
• 57:34
  Why are they sending them?
• 57:36
  It's not always, to be honest, it's not always fantastically helpful.
• 57:40
  We're still, again, at that point where sometimes the commissioners go, it's
• 57:44
  such a nice thing for people to do.
• 57:48
  Yeah, which they're right, it is, but that's only one part
• 57:51
  of the picture, as we all know.
• 57:53
  So you don't want to undervalue yourselves either, and I have put a
• 57:56
  bit of a, in people I've been speaking to recently, put a bit of a red light
• 58:00
  around well being tools, oversimplified well being tools, which don't give a
• 58:06
  proper insight into all the different things you could be achieving with
• 58:10
  an equine assisted intervention.
• 58:12
  Right.
• 58:13
  And you can, you can kind of undervalue
• 58:15
  Rupert Isaacson: yourself.
• 58:16
  That's right.
• 58:16
  I think, I think Kez, you, you, you pointed this out once when we
• 58:20
  were chatting that and I thought this was a good point that someone
• 58:24
  often thinks in an equine program that they're doing like a thing.
• 58:27
  But actually they're doing like 50 things and they just, are so used to doing 50
• 58:33
  things that they take it for granted, but they, and then you would come along
• 58:36
  and say, well, actually, no, hold on.
• 58:38
  You think you're just doing this one thing, but actually
• 58:40
  you're doing these 50 things.
• 58:42
  And I, I would agree.
• 58:43
  I think that that's pretty, pretty ubiquitous across the board with
• 58:48
  people that work in these sorts of programs, because the context of each
• 58:51
  person that comes in is so different.
• 58:53
  And I think because horse people, I don't know if you agree, but I think
• 58:56
  people that are good horse people are quite responsive because you, you
• 59:00
  kind of have to be with horses, right?
• 59:01
  Horses show up with what they show up with and you have to kind of
• 59:04
  roll with it and be resourceful.
• 59:06
  And so that kind of, and you have to empathize or you get stomped on.
• 59:11
  We all learned that one early.
• 59:12
  So.
• 59:12
  You know, that gives you some quite good tools for this work.
• 59:15
  But then you think, well, I just trained horses, but really you
• 59:19
  could be doing all these things.
• 59:20
  Well, I just work with the kids in this way, but actually
• 59:22
  you're doing all these things.
• 59:23
  How do you, how do you think it would, how do you help people?
• 59:27
  Either of you could jump in to answer this one.
• 59:29
  How do you help people to identify those myriad things that they do and then to
• 59:35
  see which are the ones that they should prioritize in terms of getting data on?
• 59:41
  Yeah,
• 59:42
  Kezia Sullivan: so, I have done a bit of observation before of people in their,
• 59:47
  in their practice and that was, that was the experience that you mentioned.
• 59:52
  Okay.
• 59:53
  You know, they kind of They sort of thought they were probably doing quite
• 59:58
  well, but they didn't necessarily know exactly what they were doing.
• 1:00:02
  And they actually sent me a syllabus and it was all, you know, they do
• 1:00:05
  these tasks and things like that, you know, they groom the pony.
• 1:00:09
  And then I went there and saw these facilitators using this enormous array of
• 1:00:14
  practices that are already evidence based.
• 1:00:17
  Okay.
• 1:00:18
  You know, things like unconditional positive regard and What does that mean?
• 1:00:24
  So, always viewing the part, always communicating with the participant
• 1:00:29
  in a kind of positive, in a way that doesn't detract from them as a person.
• 1:00:34
  So even if the child was being incredibly hyperactive and running around and buzzing
• 1:00:38
  about, they'd say, Oh, I love your energy.
• 1:00:41
  Let's go and build a fence.
• 1:00:43
  Rather than stop it, you know, it's got an entirely different energy.
• 1:00:47
  And they were so prepared to see the wonderful in every child.
• 1:00:52
  That was one of the other things that just That positive regard.
• 1:00:55
  Yeah.
• 1:00:57
  So it's a kind of, it's an idea taken from Yeah,
• 1:00:59
  Rupert Isaacson: we can say that's ubiquitous in every riding school.
• 1:01:02
  Kezia Sullivan: No, right?
• 1:01:03
  Which is why we've got these specialised centres, that are specifically
• 1:01:08
  doing that rather than Yeah.
• 1:01:10
  shouting to have your heels down.
• 1:01:12
  Yes.
• 1:01:13
  So yeah, they were so skilled.
• 1:01:14
  And something else that they did actually that, again, I think this comes from
• 1:01:18
  horses, but I was so impressed by this.
• 1:01:21
  A participant had kind of got flustered doing a task with a horse,
• 1:01:25
  you know, it had gone slightly wrong as things sometimes do.
• 1:01:29
  And a facilitator came over and sort of sorted it out and it was no big deal.
• 1:01:32
  And they said, Oh, do you want to go and skip that horse out actually just quickly?
• 1:01:36
  I think there's a few messes in there.
• 1:01:39
  And I looked and the child went from really stressed and worried and anxious,
• 1:01:43
  and then they just went and took a minute on their own doing something useful, you
• 1:01:48
  know, and I, I asked the facilitator, did you, did you mean to do that?
• 1:01:52
  And they kind of thought about it and went, no, like, I didn't, I
• 1:01:56
  didn't know I was doing that at all.
• 1:01:57
  So I think there's.
• 1:01:59
  occasionally quite a lot of if you're not totally sure how you're doing what you're
• 1:02:05
  doing, perhaps have somebody external come in because you kind of can't see
• 1:02:09
  culture from within your own organization.
• 1:02:12
  And culture we know is a really huge part of it.
• 1:02:15
  So the way that the facilitators treat the horses, treat each other, treat
• 1:02:19
  participants, all goes into culture.
• 1:02:22
  And that's what creates the sense of safety that we know is so
• 1:02:25
  important for people to make changes.
• 1:02:28
  So it all I think, I hope that answered your question, how would you help?
• 1:02:32
  Go and just have somebody have a
• 1:02:34
  Rupert Isaacson: look.
• 1:02:35
  So it sounds like people should actually reach out to you guys
• 1:02:37
  directly and say, would you, would you guys come and look at our place?
• 1:02:40
  You guys are busy.
• 1:02:42
  Share with
• 1:02:43
  Kezia Sullivan: each other as well, share techniques, share ideas, for sure.
• 1:02:48
  You know, there's a lot of expertise across organizations.
• 1:02:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Now, can people actually bring you guys in as consultants that way?
• 1:02:55
  Oh,
• 1:02:55
  Kezia Sullivan: yes, please.
• 1:02:57
  Rupert Isaacson: They get in touch.
• 1:02:58
  Okay.
• 1:02:59
  Well, talk to us about that.
• 1:03:00
  What would you do?
• 1:03:01
  How would you do it?
• 1:03:02
  How would they get in touch with you?
• 1:03:03
  What would the mechanism be?
• 1:03:05
  There might be people listening right now going, actually,
• 1:03:07
  ooh, I would quite like that.
• 1:03:09
  But how would I get a Kez or a Nan in here to assess what we do?
• 1:03:13
  Kezia Sullivan: So, Anne, correct me if I'm wrong and please do build on this.
• 1:03:17
  The way that we have tended to work firstly, I mean, again, I can't quite
• 1:03:23
  speak for Anne, but I'm sure everybody is welcome to reach out to either one of
• 1:03:27
  us definitely welcome to reach out to me.
• 1:03:32
  sort of thinking about this and you're not quite sure what you want, we have,
• 1:03:36
  you have no idea at all, you just think I should be doing something, then perhaps
• 1:03:41
  reach out to me and we'll figure it out and then we'll go and talk to Anne.
• 1:03:46
  Or if you know what you want and it's a university to come and do some research,
• 1:03:50
  then absolutely go and speak to Anne and perhaps I'll come in and perhaps I won't.
• 1:03:55
  And then, yeah, there's kind of any number of combinations.
• 1:03:59
  So the other thing that I do is consulting.
• 1:04:02
  So if you have a question that isn't perhaps a research question to publish a
• 1:04:06
  finding, but you do want somebody external to run things by or talk to about it,
• 1:04:12
  then you can always get in touch with me.
• 1:04:14
  And sometimes Anne and I will do that together as well.
• 1:04:18
  Okay, so
• 1:04:18
  Rupert Isaacson: at the end of this podcast, we'll make sure that people
• 1:04:21
  know how to contact you directly.
• 1:04:25
  Okay.
• 1:04:26
  We're going to return to that.
• 1:04:28
  Anne, what are you guys working on?
• 1:04:30
  What are you working on right now that is of particular excitement to you?
• 1:04:33
  And what's groundbreaking now in the field?
• 1:04:38
  Yeah,
• 1:04:38
  Ann Hemingway: we're doing building on what Kez said first.
• 1:04:41
  We're looking at doing what's called reverse coding.
• 1:04:44
  Okay.
• 1:04:45
  With a, with several equine assisted
• 1:04:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Reverse coding.
• 1:04:50
  Does that mean that their computers go back to the stone age or something?
• 1:04:54
  Ann Hemingway: No, this means that we look at all the factors
• 1:04:57
  as Kez was describing and more.
• 1:05:00
  And we look at what qualities make the intervention effective
• 1:05:04
  and what characterizes equine assisted interventions.
• 1:05:08
  It's those, it's the culture and the other qualities and the, as well as the
• 1:05:12
  outcomes, which we're interested in.
• 1:05:15
  And we believe that we can map those against existing behavior change theory
• 1:05:20
  or potentially build a new behavior change theory, which is related
• 1:05:25
  specifically to equine assisted services.
• 1:05:28
  So that's something that we're looking at doing in the next
• 1:05:31
  year really, isn't it, Kez?
• 1:05:32
  So, with Andrew Powell, who did reverse coding of weight loss or
• 1:05:37
  exercise programs, forgive me, Andrew, I've forgotten for his
• 1:05:40
  PhD, which was very exciting.
• 1:05:42
  So this is about a successful intervention, functioning interventions
• 1:05:47
  that haven't, which haven't been designed with a behavior change theory in mind.
• 1:05:52
  So it's going along and looking at what they're actually doing, and seeing which
• 1:05:56
  theory might fit, or whether in fact they're doing something quite unique
• 1:05:59
  and different, and it, it requires its own behavior change theory so that's one
• 1:06:05
  strand, that's one strand of activity.
• 1:06:08
  I'm also working with some neuropsych psychologists and, um, the university.
• 1:06:15
  We've done.
• 1:06:16
  Some electroencephalograms, so EEGs on humans interacting with horses,
• 1:06:22
  which is captures your brain activity.
• 1:06:25
  We've done about 10 humans with horses so far, and we're going to do some more.
• 1:06:32
  And we found, and some of those were very, very experienced
• 1:06:36
  and some were complete newbies.
• 1:06:38
  And we looked at the difference in, and there is a lot of differences
• 1:06:41
  in brain activity, the focus.
• 1:06:43
  And the calmness, the relaxation is, is really well developed in experienced horse
• 1:06:50
  people in a way that it's not for others.
• 1:06:53
  That's our preliminary finding.
• 1:06:55
  So,
• 1:06:55
  Rupert Isaacson: so experienced horse people have a better
• 1:06:59
  ability to self regulate?
• 1:07:00
  Yes, yes.
• 1:07:04
  And then When you're looking at that science through the EEGs, are you
• 1:07:09
  seeing, because obviously if someone's coming as a client, perhaps they
• 1:07:14
  haven't been around horses very much, so presumably they're not going to show
• 1:07:18
  that same brain activity that someone with more experience is going to show.
• 1:07:22
  No, they tend to be a bit more seductive.
• 1:07:23
  What point do you see that they begin
• 1:07:25
  Ann Hemingway: to?
• 1:07:26
  Yeah, well, we haven't done that work yet.
• 1:07:28
  We've just we've just at the moment.
• 1:07:29
  We've just got the two extremes to compare That's something for the future but
• 1:07:33
  something we'd like to do next and and we're also planning to do some work with
• 1:07:38
  a Company called mammal tech who are based in Belgium mammal Mammal tech mammal doc
• 1:07:47
  and you can find them on the internet And they've designed an EEG, a mobile
• 1:07:51
  EEG, like the human one, but it fits on the side of a head collar for horses.
• 1:07:57
  So our next plan this year is to do horse and human brain activity while they're
• 1:08:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh God, that sounds almost like, you know, if horses could
• 1:08:07
  talk, I'd hate to put the EG on my horses and see what they're saying about me,
• 1:08:13
  it's like, Oh my God, I'm so stressed.
• 1:08:14
  It's Rupert's in the, in the stable again.
• 1:08:17
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah.
• 1:08:17
  It's very early days.
• 1:08:19
  Anyway,
• 1:08:19
  Rupert Isaacson: we won't be doing that study.
• 1:08:20
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah.
• 1:08:21
  Yeah.
• 1:08:21
  It's very early days and we don't fully understand the human brain or
• 1:08:25
  the equine brain, so, you know, it's, it's early science, but it's, as a
• 1:08:29
  result, it's very exciting because we These studies are basically
• 1:08:33
  about describing what's happening.
• 1:08:35
  Rupert Isaacson: How did you hook up with those guys?
• 1:08:36
  That's an interesting, interesting project.
• 1:08:39
  Ann Hemingway: They either connected with the neuropsychologist
• 1:08:43
  or we connected with them.
• 1:08:45
  I can't remember, to be honest.
• 1:08:47
  We've just had a few meetings online and we're planning to do some data
• 1:08:50
  collection a bit later in the year.
• 1:08:52
  They've already done a handful of horse
• 1:08:59
  Rupert Isaacson: That's fascinating.
• 1:09:00
  So it's, it's very exciting.
• 1:09:01
  That's sort of animal communication taken to the next level, isn't it?
• 1:09:07
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:09:07
  And it's thanks to the tech moving on massively because, you know, the
• 1:09:11
  horses had to be, it was very difficult to do that kind of EEG on horses.
• 1:09:16
  They had to be sedated and whatever, and have their heads
• 1:09:19
  shaved and all sorts of stuff.
• 1:09:21
  And humans had to be in the lab to have it done because the tech has moved on so much
• 1:09:26
  that the human has to wear like a bathing cap, you know, with the technology.
• 1:09:30
  And with a, with a backpack on, with a, with a laptop in, which
• 1:09:34
  collects the data moment by moment.
• 1:09:37
  The only thing with it is it produces a mountain of data, EEG, so.
• 1:09:42
  But it, yeah, it's early days, but it's that's very exciting to
• 1:09:44
  me, and I'm going to be looking for some research funding too.
• 1:09:48
  support that work later this year.
• 1:09:50
  Rupert Isaacson: When the horse is wearing the EEG machine though, presumably
• 1:09:53
  they're not carrying a huge laptop.
• 1:09:55
  So
• 1:09:55
  Ann Hemingway: the horses are, they do it with a mobile phone.
• 1:09:59
  Yeah, they do it with a mobile phone.
• 1:10:01
  So the horse wears, basically they have like a head collar with an extra bit on
• 1:10:05
  it, with a little bit of a sponge in it.
• 1:10:07
  So they, you know, they can and they have a mobile phone
• 1:10:11
  which goes in a little pocket.
• 1:10:12
  So it's very, very yeah, very simple and not invasive for them at
• 1:10:16
  Rupert Isaacson: all.
• 1:10:17
  It's, it's of course brilliant but of course it's making me laugh because,
• 1:10:20
  you know, So many of, for example, the kids that might be sent out to
• 1:10:23
  my programme, people saying, well, you shouldn't be on your device,
• 1:10:26
  you shouldn't be on your phone.
• 1:10:27
  They can point, well, why is that horse on his
• 1:10:29
  Ann Hemingway: phone?
• 1:10:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Horses, they're gaming.
• 1:10:35
  Yeah.
• 1:10:35
  That's fascinating stuff.
• 1:10:38
  I'm so glad I'm talking to you.
• 1:10:39
  I had no idea people were even doing these things.
• 1:10:43
  Yeah.
• 1:10:46
  When, how many of you guys are there in this field of really
• 1:10:50
  researching equine assisted now?
• 1:10:52
  Is it, is it suddenly everyone and their dog, or is it still
• 1:10:55
  just a real handful of you?
• 1:10:57
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, I think there's an increasing number that has, as you said,
• 1:11:00
  there's a lot of PhDs done on equine assisted which is great in one way,
• 1:11:05
  but it's, those studies are, are, are.
• 1:11:09
  are limited by them being PhDs, if that makes sense, because
• 1:11:13
  you've only got one person and it all has to be their own work.
• 1:11:16
  And, you know, it's, once you get into a team situation, you know,
• 1:11:20
  like Kez and I, or myself and Zun He the, the neuroscientists I work
• 1:11:24
  with, you, you can do a lot more, you know, and even bigger teams, you
• 1:11:28
  do, you know, it increases again.
• 1:11:30
  So, so there's, there's that issue.
• 1:11:33
  And also, There's a, it has been, I think, a lot of people in
• 1:11:38
  psychology doing from psychology doing equine assisted it studies.
• 1:11:43
  Which is great, but that kind, that kind of evidence is not acceptable in
• 1:11:49
  other, always in other disciplines.
• 1:11:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Tell us the name again, I neuroscientist that you're working with.
• 1:11:56
  Ann Hemingway: Dunhe, X U N H
• 1:11:59
  Rupert Isaacson: E.
• 1:11:59
  X U N H, Xun He.
• 1:12:01
  And where is Xun He located?
• 1:12:03
  Ann Hemingway: He's in my university.
• 1:12:04
  University of
• 1:12:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Bournemouth.
• 1:12:06
  Why is he interested in this?
• 1:12:07
  Is he a horseman?
• 1:12:09
  Ann Hemingway: He's not, but he has had a go now.
• 1:12:12
  He has to baptism by fire, you know, in order to do this study.
• 1:12:15
  But
• 1:12:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Why was he interested in the study then if he's not?
• 1:12:18
  He's
• 1:12:18
  Ann Hemingway: interested in humans and animals.
• 1:12:21
  He, yeah, as part of his background and his original, you
• 1:12:25
  know, He has that background.
• 1:12:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Have you guys done, reached out to or doing any work with
• 1:12:35
  Nina Ekholm Fry at the University of Denver with the Institute for Human
• 1:12:40
  Animal Connection, Communication?
• 1:12:43
  Ann Hemingway: I have met her, but it was some years ago, I'm trying to remember.
• 1:12:49
  Rupert Isaacson: She's an old, an old mate of mine and actually
• 1:12:52
  I just had her on the podcast.
• 1:12:54
  I think she just went live actually.
• 1:12:56
  I would love to put you guys in touch because it, it, that sounds like,
• 1:13:00
  Ann Hemingway: I'm a, I'm always keen to, I, I did a thing a few years
• 1:13:03
  ago to invite everyone, you know, to come together, people who had
• 1:13:07
  published and things, but it is, it is scattered kind of across the world.
• 1:13:11
  And then unfortunately there's, you know, like you were referring to a bit, Rupert,
• 1:13:16
  there's, you know, there's It's slightly a a disciplinary, a disciplinary silo.
• 1:13:21
  In academia?
• 1:13:23
  Really?
• 1:13:24
  Yeah, slightly disciplinary silos going on you know.
• 1:13:28
  And, and academia is extremely competitive.
• 1:13:31
  Yes,
• 1:13:31
  Rupert Isaacson: it is.
• 1:13:32
  No, it is.
• 1:13:33
  Absolutely.
• 1:13:34
  I mean, yeah.
• 1:13:34
  One's job is, is dependent on the funding one gets, yeah.
• 1:13:37
  And so it's a sort of vested interest in being right.
• 1:13:40
  Ann Hemingway: Funding and publication really is, you know, is the current thing.
• 1:13:43
  It's a lot of pressure.
• 1:13:44
  Absolutely.
• 1:13:46
  Rupert Isaacson: What's interesting, though, is, you know, there was me
• 1:13:48
  saying off the cuff, Oh, you know, what about Nina at Combe Friar,
• 1:13:52
  you know, University of Denver.
• 1:13:53
  The fact that we're even, or that you said earlier, well, what about, you know,
• 1:13:56
  HETI, they should reach out to HETI.
• 1:13:58
  The fact that that institute in Denver is even there, or that you guys are even
• 1:14:04
  doing what you're doing, or that HETI is even existing now, I think shows us,
• 1:14:08
  really in the field how far we've come.
• 1:14:10
  And it seems to me like we were all so busy, and now we suddenly
• 1:14:14
  put our heads up, I think somewhere after COVID and realize, oh my gosh,
• 1:14:18
  actually, there's quite a lot of people out there doing this, the research
• 1:14:26
  and the academic side of it now.
• 1:14:29
  Ann Hemingway: And having a different disciplines is huge to
• 1:14:31
  me, it's always hugely beneficial.
• 1:14:34
  It's when you bring those disciplines together, like myself and Zhe.
• 1:14:38
  Mm-Hmm.
• 1:14:38
  Because KE is from a different discipline, aren't you originally?
• 1:14:42
  Kezia Sullivan: Yes.
• 1:14:43
  Psychology actually.
• 1:14:44
  , yeah.
• 1:14:45
  Psychology.
• 1:14:45
  And
• 1:14:46
  Ann Hemingway: I'm from, and I'm from a public health background and,
• 1:14:49
  you know, you all bring different skills and different insights and
• 1:14:53
  different research methodologies and, and, and, and I, and I think that's
• 1:14:58
  fantastically beneficial and also.
• 1:15:00
  The research fund is due to, and they're very keen now to fund, much
• 1:15:04
  more keen to fund cross disciplinary research because it's where the
• 1:15:09
  new discoveries are, essentially, where the exciting science happens.
• 1:15:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, absolutely, the alchemy, when you, when you
• 1:15:17
  mix different chemicals together.
• 1:15:20
  Harking back to the, the study that you guys did on the domestic violence
• 1:15:25
  that's It's that's extraordinary 51 percent reduction and I'm still
• 1:15:31
  there after a year the horse course So shout out to the horse course.
• 1:15:36
  Well done guys hats off
• 1:15:37
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah,
• 1:15:42
  Rupert Isaacson: I was I was seeing that on the Forget which media that they were
• 1:15:46
  clearly well well earned Harriet Laurie.
• 1:15:49
  That's awesome.
• 1:15:50
  We should all be looking at.
• 1:15:52
  Is that kind of we started this conversation with talking about
• 1:15:55
  behavioral change, and you're in public health and obviously domestic violence.
• 1:15:59
  Well, that's a huge public health issue.
• 1:16:01
  Is this what's the next stage on from that study?
• 1:16:05
  Because that sounds like a a really good trailblazer.
• 1:16:09
  Where do you want to see
• 1:16:10
  Ann Hemingway: that go?
• 1:16:11
  I, what I've been trying to do a bit on, on not very successful is to get
• 1:16:17
  everyone in the equine assisted services world to think about whether they work
• 1:16:23
  with supported families in the UK.
• 1:16:27
  Now supported families are the families which, and, and these programs have a
• 1:16:31
  different name in every county, which doesn't help, I realize doesn't help,
• 1:16:36
  but these are families who are, have multiple problems and who the local
• 1:16:40
  authority have some extra funding to support and they might be sending
• 1:16:44
  them or members of the family to your equine assisted service in the UK.
• 1:16:49
  Because what would be really exciting is to do a multi centre assessment of
• 1:16:55
  equine assisted services in relation to these supported families, and supported
• 1:17:00
  families is a government policy in the UK whether it's called, whatever it's
• 1:17:06
  called, you know, in your county, it might be called something different.
• 1:17:08
  We're working with Horseworld in Bristol and it's called something different
• 1:17:11
  in, in Bristol than it is in Dorset.
• 1:17:15
  So, but it would be really exciting to be able to because that's second
• 1:17:18
  what we call secondary data analysis So this is data that already exists.
• 1:17:22
  It's already anonymized.
• 1:17:24
  You don't have to bother your vulnerable families with it You
• 1:17:26
  don't have to collect it yourselves.
• 1:17:28
  The local authority is already collecting it Has the potential to open up yeah, to,
• 1:17:36
  to give us more insights into what, where the equine assisted services are working.
• 1:17:42
  Because that program, until you produce result in that data that's collected by
• 1:17:47
  the local authority on these multiple data points every three months,
• 1:17:51
  until you start to positively impact on those areas you don't get paid.
• 1:17:56
  So it's quite obvious if you're getting paid by the local authority for children
• 1:18:01
  and families that are coming to you.
• 1:18:03
  On this program, then you're having some kind of impact and it's hidden in the
• 1:18:07
  data that's at the local authorities.
• 1:18:09
  And we would love to get our sticky fingers on it, frankly.
• 1:18:12
  But I think secondary data is something that people forget about.
• 1:18:17
  They think they've got to do all the data collection in house
• 1:18:19
  in the Equine Assisted Service.
• 1:18:21
  And if they've got referrers, which is why that referral
• 1:18:23
  process and the follow up etc.
• 1:18:25
  is so important.
• 1:18:27
  Then you've got you may have data that you're not even aware of.
• 1:18:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so let's just recap on that.
• 1:18:33
  This is useful So let's say a listener is has is working in
• 1:18:37
  the uk has a program in the uk.
• 1:18:40
  And they Have supported you said supported families being sent
• 1:18:45
  to them being referred to them.
• 1:18:48
  So is what they need to do Go to the referrers and say, why are you
• 1:18:58
  continuing to refer people to us?
• 1:19:00
  Or should they be contacting you and saying, these are the referrers
• 1:19:05
  who have now been referring these people to us for X amount of time?
• 1:19:10
  Do you Anne and Kez want to contact them to find out why?
• 1:19:15
  Which should they do?
• 1:19:17
  Ann Hemingway: Well, initially, we won't get, we won't be allowed to have any
• 1:19:20
  information from the local authority.
• 1:19:21
  It needs to come from the Equine Assistive Service that they're commissioning.
• 1:19:25
  If they go to them and say, are we, are we taking supported
• 1:19:29
  families on our intervention?
• 1:19:32
  Are you collecting data on us therefore because what you'd need to have is a data
• 1:19:36
  sharing agreement, which we had to do that paper, which Kez was talking about.
• 1:19:41
  And that data sharing agreement needs to be between the local authority,
• 1:19:46
  the police, because there's crime data in there, health services,
• 1:19:49
  because there's health data in there and social services, because there's
• 1:19:51
  social care data in there as well.
• 1:19:55
  And then you know, so it's quite a process, it's, as most things, good
• 1:19:59
  things are, but it, it could, even if we just have a hand, you know, a
• 1:20:04
  handful of, of places that, that are receiving, you know, are working with
• 1:20:08
  those families, it would be fascinating to see how Equine Assisted is, is working.
• 1:20:15
  functioning in that arena.
• 1:20:16
  So,
• 1:20:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Horsepoi, should I reach out to, say, the handful of our
• 1:20:24
  most busy practitioners in the UK?
• 1:20:27
  Yeah.
• 1:20:28
  And say, hey look, was just chatting with Anne Hemingway, she
• 1:20:32
  says, are you, she's asking, are you receiving supported families?
• 1:20:39
  Yeah.
• 1:20:39
  Ann Hemingway: And if they say yes, what should I tell them to do as a next step?
• 1:20:44
  Then to approach the local authority and ask if they collect, if
• 1:20:47
  they're collecting data on their
• 1:20:49
  Rupert Isaacson: outcomes.
• 1:20:50
  Yeah.
• 1:20:50
  Okay.
• 1:20:50
  And then ask if they've got data.
• 1:20:53
  Yeah.
• 1:20:54
  And then if the local authority says yes we do, then what should they do?
• 1:20:59
  Well,
• 1:20:59
  Ann Hemingway: then they can, if they want to, they can contact us and say, we might
• 1:21:02
  have some fantastic troubled supported families data that you can sweat over and
• 1:21:09
  Rupert Isaacson: analyse.
• 1:21:10
  For example, I could also just put you in direct touch with these people
• 1:21:14
  and you could ask them yourself.
• 1:21:15
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:21:15
  Or it gets you busy for that.
• 1:21:17
  Yeah,
• 1:21:17
  Ann Hemingway: no, no, it'd be fine.
• 1:21:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Because I think it would be Are you actively hunting
• 1:21:20
  this data at this, at this point?
• 1:21:23
  Yeah.
• 1:21:23
  Ann Hemingway: Okay.
• 1:21:25
  The reason being that this policy is due up for review in 2025.
• 1:21:30
  This government policy.
• 1:21:31
  So, if we don't do it soon, the nature of it might change.
• 1:21:37
  And rather than having years of the same data to analyze and big numbers,
• 1:21:42
  which is what an observational study is, our sample is Between 13
• 1:21:47
  wasn't it Kez, I think, altogether.
• 1:21:49
  Well, that, that will be lost.
• 1:21:51
  That, that opportunity to analyse that, and often those families are being
• 1:21:55
  referred to make quite assistive services.
• 1:21:58
  I think it will be gone.
• 1:22:02
  So if it's there now and we can do data sharing agreements and we can
• 1:22:04
  analyse it, it would be wonderful to get like a multi centre assessment
• 1:22:11
  Rupert Isaacson: of it.
• 1:22:12
  Would given that you're working in the UK, would centres working in
• 1:22:16
  Ireland also be of use for that?
• 1:22:17
  Or would it have to be only UK based?
• 1:22:19
  I don't
• 1:22:20
  Ann Hemingway: really know whether they have the same policy.
• 1:22:21
  It's worth asking the question though, I suppose.
• 1:22:24
  You see, to me, it's worth having that dialogue with your referrer,
• 1:22:26
  your commissioner, always.
• 1:22:28
  Why are they sending?
• 1:22:29
  What outcomes are they after?
• 1:22:31
  What are the changes are they seeing?
• 1:22:33
  Because with the horse course we do and some of the others, we do before
• 1:22:38
  at the end and then two months later.
• 1:22:41
  And then, you don't need to ask your vulnerable participants to do anything.
• 1:22:46
  The referrers can make the assessment.
• 1:22:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:22:50
  Okay.
• 1:22:51
  And so, let's say you're hunting this data now, and that's the, that's the
• 1:22:54
  follow up to your domestic violence study.
• 1:22:58
  What would you hope would be the outcome?
• 1:23:00
  Basically continued government funding for this?
• 1:23:03
  Or increased government funding for this?
• 1:23:05
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, I think as a minimum it would show the commissioners
• 1:23:08
  that there's been an impact.
• 1:23:10
  What the impacts are from the quite assisted work.
• 1:23:14
  That's basically it.
• 1:23:15
  And
• 1:23:15
  Rupert Isaacson: then would you, would you as University of Bournemouth, with
• 1:23:18
  your University of Bournemouth hat on directly approach those commissioners?
• 1:23:22
  Or would you just put that out there into the public domain
• 1:23:25
  and hope that they find it?
• 1:23:27
  You're saying
• 1:23:29
  Ann Hemingway: we published it, but we also always make the final papers
• 1:23:33
  available to the equine assisted service.
• 1:23:36
  We've been working
• 1:23:38
  Rupert Isaacson: in terms of the commissioners.
• 1:23:39
  Do you would you then direct you
• 1:23:42
  Ann Hemingway: can the equine assisted services themselves can share it with
• 1:23:45
  the commissioner or we can say, you know, but, but they can share it with
• 1:23:49
  the commissioners and we can share.
• 1:23:52
  I mean, it is possible to do.
• 1:23:54
  Like a a press release as well, because, you know, that's quite a
• 1:23:58
  big deal, you know, those findings we had before were a big deal.
• 1:24:01
  There's not many, there's not many interventions, sadly, for domestic
• 1:24:06
  violence, which prospectively prevent it.
• 1:24:09
  There's a lot of recovery programs, because it's a society we obviously don't
• 1:24:13
  care about domestic violence, otherwise we'd be doing something about it.
• 1:24:17
  very early on in children's lives, but I'll shut up at that point.
• 1:24:22
  But as it is, we only focus on recovery.
• 1:24:25
  We don't focus on
• 1:24:26
  Rupert Isaacson: prevention.
• 1:24:29
  What is your, this, this is obviously something you care quite
• 1:24:33
  passionately about, particularly the domestic violence one.
• 1:24:35
  I think it's good that you do.
• 1:24:37
  And I think you're right.
• 1:24:38
  I think that most countries actually don't care.
• 1:24:42
  And I think they don't care only because it's only been thought of as
• 1:24:48
  something wrong relatively recently.
• 1:24:51
  Like that's a mind blower, but if you think about Christian doctrine,
• 1:24:55
  for example, you know, that, that's, let's take it out of domestic context.
• 1:25:00
  I am from the last generation of males in the UK who were probably regularly
• 1:25:05
  like weekly or every, every few days beaten right at school, we were beaten.
• 1:25:11
  And at the time, nobody saw anything wrong with that.
• 1:25:13
  It was legal.
• 1:25:14
  And so it's.
• 1:25:16
  And I know I'm ancient, but I'm not that ancient.
• 1:25:18
  So.
• 1:25:20
  That's a change that we've seen in a generation.
• 1:25:23
  So I think you're right that the previous generations didn't really
• 1:25:27
  see that much wrong with it, unless it went beyond a certain point, unless
• 1:25:31
  someone was hospitalized, or unless somebody was, you know, that entire
• 1:25:34
  home was broken up, or something radical happened, but not just a day to day
• 1:25:38
  Ann Hemingway: knocking about.
• 1:25:38
  Yeah, but the reality is that women, two or three women are
• 1:25:40
  killed every week in the UK.
• 1:25:42
  Oh, for sure.
• 1:25:44
  By someone who is most commonly, most commonly, over 90 percent
• 1:25:48
  Rupert Isaacson: is.
• 1:25:48
  Absolutely.
• 1:25:49
  And if you look at most religious texts, for example, they kind of say
• 1:25:53
  it's all right, they do, you know.
• 1:25:56
  And so it's not surprising that people get brought up in those
• 1:26:01
  beliefs and perpetuate them.
• 1:26:04
  But so yeah, I would agree with you that the not caring, we've inherited this
• 1:26:11
  in the same way that we've inherited warfare and the same way that we've
• 1:26:14
  inherited Many things that we're only just beginning to think maybe we
• 1:26:19
  Ann Hemingway: shouldn't.
• 1:26:20
  And it's very interesting.
• 1:26:21
  I think it refers back to your point, that's obviously the historian coming
• 1:26:25
  out, but it refers back to your earlier point about what's shifted about equine
• 1:26:29
  assisted, maybe the shift is that we now care about the equine assisted outcomes
• 1:26:33
  in a way that we didn't in the past.
• 1:26:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, you're right.
• 1:26:36
  I mean, I think you could, we could even say we care about mental health now.
• 1:26:40
  Yeah.
• 1:26:41
  And perhaps even only since COVID in a way that we just frankly haven't.
• 1:26:46
  And that's kind of new.
• 1:26:48
  And sadly, business is good, right?
• 1:26:50
  Unfortunately, because, you know, we're all nuts.
• 1:26:54
  I know I am.
• 1:26:55
  In fact, I have a, I have a, say that again, sorry.
• 1:26:58
  Ann Hemingway: I said there's nothing wrong with it per se,
• 1:26:59
  it's just a bit bothersome.
• 1:27:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, it's when all my multiple personalities
• 1:27:05
  start to argue with each other, it gets a bit bothersome, yeah.
• 1:27:08
  Keep me up at night.
• 1:27:09
  So, in your guys perfect world, Let's take this domestic violence thing and
• 1:27:16
  then you go to your secondary gathering of that data from supported families,
• 1:27:21
  which I'm sure you're going to do.
• 1:27:23
  And I will do anything I can to help you with that.
• 1:27:26
  Let's put ourselves ahead five years, 10 years.
• 1:27:29
  What do you guys want to see?
• 1:27:36
  Kezia Sullivan: To be honest, we're seeing the start of it now with things like the
• 1:27:40
  CAMHS mental health service, referring young people to equine assisted services.
• 1:27:48
  Rupert Isaacson: If I'm an American listener, what's CAMS?
• 1:27:50
  CAMS
• 1:27:51
  Kezia Sullivan: is the kind of good question.
• 1:27:53
  The UK mental health provision that's kind of available on, on the NHS.
• 1:27:59
  Rupert Isaacson: National Health
• 1:27:59
  Kezia Sullivan: Service.
• 1:28:00
  Yeah, on the National Health Service.
• 1:28:02
  So it's almost like if your insurance provider got behind it, I suppose.
• 1:28:06
  Okay.
• 1:28:07
  But what, what that means is that it's starting to become more available.
• 1:28:13
  to the people who we know need it and who we know it is working for.
• 1:28:18
  So it's all kind of cycling around.
• 1:28:20
  So yeah, that's, that's what I'd like to see more of is just accessibility to
• 1:28:25
  people who, who need it and knowing that it's been delivered in a way that works.
• 1:28:31
  Rupert Isaacson: But what would that specifically look like?
• 1:28:35
  For example, I just got back from Norway.
• 1:28:39
  And I was interviewing for this podcast day, really interesting
• 1:28:44
  lady there, Noren Kogstad, Dr.
• 1:28:47
  Noren Kogstad, she's a, she's a psychotherapist and a psychiatrist
• 1:28:51
  and a doctor, and she's running this really interesting center.
• 1:28:54
  And I said, you know, Why is this supported?
• 1:28:59
  Why are you getting all these people sent to you in Norway?
• 1:29:02
  You know, what's what's special about Norway that they she said what a route,
• 1:29:05
  you know in Norway We have a tradition actually of having stables in mental
• 1:29:11
  hospitals and we actually have had that since at least a hundred years
• 1:29:16
  and it's something a bit specific to Norway and she went into the She, she
• 1:29:20
  went into the history of why that was and that they're, they're fighting
• 1:29:23
  for it now because it's being eroded.
• 1:29:25
  Is it, for example, is geyser's perfect world?
• 1:29:29
  Would there be a stable and a farm in every hospital, for example?
• 1:29:34
  Kezia Sullivan: Well, I think that's part of why I do the research, is to
• 1:29:38
  understand in what way the access is best provided, so that, you know, resources
• 1:29:45
  can be used in the most effective way.
• 1:29:47
  way.
• 1:29:48
  So yeah, it would be great to eventually see it supported by the
• 1:29:52
  infrastructure, but I don't yet have an idea of exactly how that would
• 1:29:56
  Rupert Isaacson: be.
• 1:29:57
  But you can fantasize, a girl can dream.
• 1:30:00
  What, what, what, what, what would you, in your perfect world, what would
• 1:30:04
  this landscape of mental health in the UK Based on the research that you and
• 1:30:09
  people like you have done, we're looking ahead 20 years in a perfect world.
• 1:30:14
  What's it looking like?
• 1:30:17
  It's a really
• 1:30:18
  Kezia Sullivan: good question.
• 1:30:18
  And for me, it's just too early.
• 1:30:20
  I really don't Go
• 1:30:21
  Rupert Isaacson: on, have a crack at it.
• 1:30:22
  Otherwise you wouldn't have gotten involved in this in the first place.
• 1:30:25
  Of course you have a dream.
• 1:30:26
  What is it?
• 1:30:27
  Kezia Sullivan: Well, I mean, the dream is that everybody who needs
• 1:30:30
  access can get it, but I haven't taken that to a systems approach
• 1:30:35
  yet where, where I can make it work.
• 1:30:39
  Ann Hemingway: Anne?
• 1:30:41
  Yeah, I think I think I want to be confident, as confident
• 1:30:45
  as I can be that it doesn't,
• 1:30:51
  it's a positive, that we can ensure that it's a positive
• 1:30:53
  thing for the horses as well.
• 1:30:55
  I, what I wrote down when I, when I was preparing for this, I said, what are the
• 1:31:00
  horses getting out of this relationship?
• 1:31:04
  And for me if we are in 20 years still offering equine assisted, then
• 1:31:12
  what are they getting out of it?
• 1:31:13
  And are we fully bought into the prey animal needs in terms of how they're kept?
• 1:31:22
  Freedom, Friends, and Forage is a very beginning to all of this.
• 1:31:27
  Are we still keeping them as prisoners?
• 1:31:31
  You know, so for me, it's about Freedom, Friends, and Forage, I like that.
• 1:31:36
  In the process of doing this, that we're not burdening
• 1:31:40
  them with it, with our stuff.
• 1:31:43
  And I've, you know, to be honest, I've seen lots of different models, and some
• 1:31:48
  are, I think, more strongly than others, but we're still not really in a position.
• 1:31:54
  Apart from the fact that we do have a lot of research now in terms of what
• 1:31:57
  benefits horses in terms of their keeping, in terms of their everyday
• 1:32:02
  living, and their relationships, that is still being ignored by, I would
• 1:32:08
  say, massive parts of the horsey community, outside of EAS, you know,
• 1:32:14
  so I'm hoping that outside of the what?
• 1:32:16
  Outside of equine assisted Okay, right.
• 1:32:20
  You know, Where the, the sports world, particularly racing, is ignoring the,
• 1:32:28
  you know, the needs of the equine.
• 1:32:30
  And we have very strong research evidence now that shows how the horses should
• 1:32:34
  be kept for the majority of their lives, and what their needs are, and
• 1:32:38
  what makes them stressed, and what the physiological signs of that are, etc.
• 1:32:43
  And it's still largely being ignored.
• 1:32:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think, I think that's true, honestly, within
• 1:32:48
  the equine assisted world as well.
• 1:32:50
  You know, I work in about 40 countries and what I see isn't always good.
• 1:32:54
  And it's not sometimes not good because the people have any intention of
• 1:32:58
  harming or being bad to their horses.
• 1:33:00
  It's just simply a traditional approach that hasn't developed yet.
• 1:33:05
  And but it's tricky because, you know, you go there and you say,
• 1:33:07
  well, actually, I can't work with you under these conditions.
• 1:33:11
  Are you willing to make these changes in the way the horses are kept?
• 1:33:16
  And actually, I find to a large degree, people often do step up
• 1:33:18
  and say, yeah, actually, why not?
• 1:33:20
  And then occasionally, sometimes they say, sort of, and then, oh, well, you can't.
• 1:33:23
  But that's an interesting thing.
• 1:33:26
  We know this is a hard thing to standardize.
• 1:33:29
  For example, there is an amazing lady called Lucy Dillon who
• 1:33:35
  is running a facility at St.
• 1:33:40
  Joseph's.
• 1:33:41
  It used to be St.
• 1:33:42
  Joseph's School for the Blind.
• 1:33:43
  It's now Child Vision in Dublin.
• 1:33:45
  And They do incredible work, and they're one of the projects that
• 1:33:49
  we work with, and I've known them.
• 1:33:51
  I've been working with them since 2013, I think, and they have almost no room.
• 1:33:57
  They're, they're an urban resource.
• 1:34:00
  And they, what they do with what they've got is extraordinary.
• 1:34:07
  And if they were to disappear, it would be a major loss to the community.
• 1:34:12
  And they have to really, you know, struggle to give
• 1:34:16
  the horses what they need.
• 1:34:17
  And they actually do do a great job and they rotate them in and out of the city
• 1:34:19
  and they, they have it down and they're, they're very, very good horse people.
• 1:34:23
  But, you know, someone from the outside could go in and say,
• 1:34:26
  well, that shouldn't be there.
• 1:34:27
  That shouldn't be in that place.
• 1:34:29
  These things are hard to standardize.
• 1:34:31
  How would we deal with the nuances of this?
• 1:34:34
  Well, I
• 1:34:34
  Ann Hemingway: think it would be about compromise as most things
• 1:34:36
  are, you know, so you'd have to.
• 1:34:39
  you'd look at managing things in a, in a way which considers the horse's needs.
• 1:34:45
  And I think as you said, you can, you can achieve freedom, friends,
• 1:34:48
  and forage in even very small spaces if you apply your mindset.
• 1:34:53
  And it's about what's important, whether it, whether the horse's needs
• 1:34:56
  and the horse's relationships are put at the forefront of what you're doing.
• 1:35:00
  And for me, that's absolutely where where I see Acorn Assisted Services having A
• 1:35:07
  massive influence because imagine all those people who've come through and
• 1:35:11
  they can be learning about the nature of the horse and what their needs are.
• 1:35:14
  And now there's so many thousands of people going through Equine Assisted
• 1:35:18
  Services all around the world.
• 1:35:20
  If, if that part of the job was taken on.
• 1:35:23
  in a conscious way.
• 1:35:25
  And that's why HETI, you know, so great and ISIS are great as well around
• 1:35:29
  the, you know, trying to come up with welfare recommendations and, and things.
• 1:35:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Give us the other organization again.
• 1:35:36
  Ann Hemingway: International equine science, international equine science,
• 1:35:40
  international society of equine science.
• 1:35:44
  I think it's ISIS, ISIS, slightly interesting name.
• 1:35:48
  Yeah.
• 1:35:49
  Yeah, it's been around a long time.
• 1:35:50
  Not their fault though.
• 1:35:51
  Yeah, no, not their fault.
• 1:35:53
  So, but, you know, people are trying to do that, but I think it, for me,
• 1:35:58
  if I had, my dream is that, that, that quite assisted services really pick up
• 1:36:03
  that baton and they say, okay, we're, we're using, we're not using that word.
• 1:36:10
  We're working with horses to help people.
• 1:36:13
  Let's use this work.
• 1:36:15
  help the equines, because it might not be horses, it might be donkeys or
• 1:36:19
  whatever, which is absolutely right.
• 1:36:21
  Equines, you know, a broad church as it were, but it's if, if we could
• 1:36:25
  do that, if that could happen, then I think that would make a really
• 1:36:30
  massive positive change in the world.
• 1:36:31
  Cause there'd be all these thousands of people who understand the nature of
• 1:36:35
  the horse and understand what they need in a way that they don't at the moment.
• 1:36:39
  And it may even spread out into other prey animals.
• 1:36:43
  Rupert Isaacson: Right, well, I guess, I guess maybe the, the
• 1:36:46
  obviously there's a, there's a wisdom in what you're saying that that's
• 1:36:48
  self evident, but maybe the wisdom that's behind that wisdom is that the,
• 1:36:53
  the, the, the Hindu wisdom is that.
• 1:36:56
  If you have programs where the welfare of the horse is part of the program.
• 1:37:05
  Yeah.
• 1:37:06
  Then, now we have those, for example.
• 1:37:08
  We have something which we've recently actually renamed it.
• 1:37:11
  And I'll be announcing it, but it's exactly that.
• 1:37:13
  It's how you rehab and train and maintain the therapy horse.
• 1:37:17
  Because and that we realized that first that came organically of just, people
• 1:37:23
  wanting to help out who had been clients who now became volunteers, you know, and
• 1:37:28
  had some skills and then we realized, oh my gosh, that's so, empowering.
• 1:37:34
  And so now we work, we do this with the German army.
• 1:37:37
  We do this with the US Air Force.
• 1:37:38
  We do this with first responders.
• 1:37:39
  We do this.
• 1:37:40
  It's usually trauma based, you know, and they're all right.
• 1:37:43
  It's all unmounted, but it's preparing the horses for the mounted work that's done.
• 1:37:47
  And the therapy, the donated horses that come in kind of broken and
• 1:37:52
  turning them back into really, you know, horses with a lot of well being.
• 1:37:56
  Yeah.
• 1:37:56
  Of course, how can a horse give well being to a human if it
• 1:37:59
  doesn't have well being itself?
• 1:38:00
  But what's interesting with that, I think, as you say, that I guess is
• 1:38:03
  the hint of wisdom behind what you say, is that apart from the obvious
• 1:38:08
  benefit for the human and the benefit for the horse in terms of the therapy
• 1:38:12
  for one and the rehab of the other, there's, I think, also an understanding,
• 1:38:17
  therefore, of how nature works.
• 1:38:19
  Yeah.
• 1:38:19
  And then going back to where we started this conversation, how relationship
• 1:38:24
  works which doesn't have to be delivered as a, we are now having a therapy
• 1:38:30
  session in how relationship works.
• 1:38:32
  Because if you're just involved in the.
• 1:38:36
  Welfare and well being of these animals, well surely that's going to be an
• 1:38:42
  automatic by product of, of, of that, because otherwise it couldn't happen.
• 1:38:47
  And my dream would be, based on your work would be that there would be an
• 1:38:54
  equine assisted, but not limited to equine assisted and nature based programs
• 1:39:02
  that includes equine assisted because I often think it's a bit limiting if
• 1:39:06
  the horse is the only game you've got.
• 1:39:07
  And I speak as a massively obsessive horseman, but nonetheless, not
• 1:39:12
  everyone's into horses and you know, one needs a greater mosaic.
• 1:39:14
  But let's say there was a nature based thing about every five kilometers.
• 1:39:18
  That would be my dream.
• 1:39:21
  And but If my dream came true, because even if there was one every five
• 1:39:26
  kilometers, you still, we still wouldn't be able to deal with the demand.
• 1:39:31
  The number of people needing that service, because you, you can't, how
• 1:39:34
  many people can you actually serve without diluting it or overwhelming
• 1:39:37
  the animals or having to, well, some
• 1:39:39
  Ann Hemingway: other work that we're involved in is, is producing
• 1:39:42
  a virtual reality version of an equine assisted system.
• 1:39:46
  intervention.
• 1:39:47
  That's interesting.
• 1:39:48
  Yeah.
• 1:39:49
  So for people you know, for people who aren't able to access horses or as you
• 1:39:55
  mentioned earlier on where it would be inappropriate for the horse's welfare
• 1:39:59
  to have them in a particular situation.
• 1:40:02
  And also for people say who are in hospital or in prison or, you
• 1:40:06
  know, can't get out into nature for any reason, like Kez mentioned.
• 1:40:11
  Be able to have the, the, because virtual reality is turning out to
• 1:40:16
  be a there's some early studies showing it's, it's really effective.
• 1:40:19
  It kind of almost magnifies the natural processes because our
• 1:40:24
  brains kind of fill in the holes, if you like, within what we're
• 1:40:28
  Rupert Isaacson: seeing.
• 1:40:28
  Yeah.
• 1:40:28
  The human imagination is the most powerful
• 1:40:30
  Ann Hemingway: tool.
• 1:40:31
  Exactly.
• 1:40:31
  Yeah.
• 1:40:31
  Yeah.
• 1:40:32
  So you can
• 1:40:34
  Rupert Isaacson: customize it and personalize it.
• 1:40:35
  Yeah,
• 1:40:36
  Ann Hemingway: yeah, exactly.
• 1:40:37
  You know, you can choose your horse is where you are.
• 1:40:39
  You can choose and.
• 1:40:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Would it, would it be like a game?
• 1:40:42
  Would it be sort of a Minecraft sort
• 1:40:44
  Ann Hemingway: of thing?
• 1:40:45
  Once you get your communications, once you're calm and assertive, etc,
• 1:40:51
  then the horse responds appropriately.
• 1:40:54
  If you're not, you know, if you're too fast and you're angry, you get all
• 1:40:59
  those kinds of behaviors that you do.
• 1:41:02
  With a real whore.
• 1:41:03
  Okay.
• 1:41:04
  Yeah.
• 1:41:04
  So that's
• 1:41:04
  Rupert Isaacson: the other point.
• 1:41:05
  It's amazing to see, in the imagination, you actually come up with a bruise.
• 1:41:08
  Or does a boxing glove come out of the or a hammer come out
• 1:41:11
  Ann Hemingway: of the Well, I, I tried the early version of it
• 1:41:15
  before it was properly put together.
• 1:41:17
  Oh, this exists?
• 1:41:18
  Yeah, we've done a, we've got a little pilot version of it, and I tried
• 1:41:22
  it, and the horse, the, the virtual horse kind of walked through me.
• 1:41:25
  Now, this has happened to me so many times in my life, that I had to take the helmet
• 1:41:31
  off because, the, the, the goggle thing, because this part of my body went numb,
• 1:41:36
  because it was expecting intense pain.
• 1:41:40
  That's interesting.
• 1:41:40
  And I had this massive rush of adrenaline, my heart was bumping, I
• 1:41:43
  was like, because I expected to be knocked into the mud and have, and
• 1:41:47
  be very uncomfortable on that side of my body as, as has, now I'm, now I'm
• 1:41:52
  giving away how crap a horse woman I am.
• 1:41:54
  But you know, it has happened to me in the past, as it, you know, as it does
• 1:41:57
  sometimes with horses, because they love to go forwards, but now I teach
• 1:41:59
  mine to go backwards and out of my space, so it doesn't happen anymore.
• 1:42:03
  Success.
• 1:42:04
  Famous last words.
• 1:42:05
  But yeah, it was, it was amazing in that second, my brain just
• 1:42:09
  went, Oh, this has happened before.
• 1:42:11
  This is, you're out.
• 1:42:13
  This is gonna really hurt.
• 1:42:15
  Yeah, it was amazing.
• 1:42:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, I could see, I could see, there's a couple of things
• 1:42:18
  I could see helping to get people through their fear and anxiety that
• 1:42:21
  way, you know, because if you, if you have a massive cortisol response to,
• 1:42:24
  you're worried about being trodden on, knocked over or falling off.
• 1:42:28
  You could maybe help people through that.
• 1:42:30
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:42:32
  You know, because a lot of things, again, as we said, being with
• 1:42:35
  horses is about managing your emotions and building relationships.
• 1:42:40
  And, you know, it's those skills, and you could prepare, you could
• 1:42:44
  polish your horsemanship on there,
• 1:42:46
  Rupert Isaacson: too.
• 1:42:46
  Totally.
• 1:42:47
  So, so you you are, you have done this game?
• 1:42:53
  Yeah, we've got, we've
• 1:42:54
  Ann Hemingway: got a preliminary, we've got just a very preliminary
• 1:42:57
  version of it that we're trying to get funding to build more.
• 1:42:59
  So if anyone's listening who wants to fund this fantastic game.
• 1:43:03
  Development men, if you can contact me.
• 1:43:06
  So University
• 1:43:08
  Rupert Isaacson: of Bournemouth is putting together this video game to provide
• 1:43:11
  equine assisted virtual reality services through I think you, you called it in
• 1:43:17
  the scientific term, the goggle thing.
• 1:43:19
  Like the machine that goes, bing!
• 1:43:21
  Okay.
• 1:43:22
  But you guys are putting this together?
• 1:43:23
  Yeah,
• 1:43:24
  Ann Hemingway: we are.
• 1:43:24
  We have a team.
• 1:43:25
  We have sensor scientists.
• 1:43:26
  Can I come and check it out?
• 1:43:30
  Sure, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:43:31
  Dr.
• 1:43:32
  Roya Horatian is our sensor scientist.
• 1:43:35
  Dr.
• 1:43:35
  Fred Charles is our VR specialist.
• 1:43:39
  Okay.
• 1:43:39
  And then he is working on it again because we're, we're, we're, the
• 1:43:44
  preliminary developments will be informed by what's happening in your
• 1:43:47
  brain to make sure that we're doing, that people get a positive outcome.
• 1:43:51
  How far along is this game?
• 1:43:53
  We have a kind of working, partly working pilot, but we need to make a
• 1:43:59
  big step forward in terms of the senses.
• 1:44:01
  So as the sensors that people wear in what's quite an active,
• 1:44:06
  interactive process, they're not, you know, you know, you will need
• 1:44:09
  to use your body posture, etc.
• 1:44:13
  And we need a different type of sensor to capture that effective
• 1:44:17
  body posture and test that out.
• 1:44:19
  So that's the major block to what we're, you know, we've kind of got that far, and
• 1:44:24
  then we need to develop this, this sensor.
• 1:44:27
  More, and we've been working with TGO, a company in London, who are
• 1:44:30
  censor scientists and do mapping.
• 1:44:33
  What's PTO?
• 1:44:33
  TGO.
• 1:44:34
  It's a company.
• 1:44:35
  Okay.
• 1:44:36
  Who look at developing censors as well.
• 1:44:39
  Um, yeah.
• 1:44:41
  Who funds this?
• 1:44:42
  Well, we had, we, that was the preliminary study for that, and the preliminary
• 1:44:47
  EEG study for the Esme Fairbairn money.
• 1:44:50
  But again, we're so cutting edge that we're, we're struggling for funding.
• 1:44:56
  Rupert Isaacson: I bet.
• 1:44:57
  Could, could we do a follow up podcast with, with your colleagues
• 1:45:00
  on this and go into it in depth?
• 1:45:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:45:03
  And maybe we can pick
• 1:45:03
  Ann Hemingway: it up and help find some funding.
• 1:45:04
  We can show people a little how far we've got with it so far, but it's very, it's
• 1:45:08
  very basic at the moment, but, but it, we're looking at, we want to have this
• 1:45:12
  kind of quality that you get in, that's in Red Dead Redemption 2, that's what we
• 1:45:16
  want, if anyone knows about video games.
• 1:45:20
  Rupert Isaacson: I've never played a video game in my life.
• 1:45:22
  Ann Hemingway: What we, what makes it, what we think it, why we think
• 1:45:25
  it will be attractive to people as well, is because the video games
• 1:45:29
  with horses in are really popular.
• 1:45:31
  You know, there's so many very top popular Video games which have horses in them.
• 1:45:36
  Rupert Isaacson: I guess that makes sense though, doesn't it?
• 1:45:38
  Because the horse always represents freedom
• 1:45:40
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, and speed and you know, and lots of people
• 1:45:42
  like that kind of historical aspect to their gaming and stuff.
• 1:45:46
  Yeah.
• 1:45:47
  Yeah
• 1:45:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Wow, you need to come and
• 1:45:50
  Ann Hemingway: pay a visit Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:45:53
  We'd love to go in the
• 1:45:54
  Rupert Isaacson: lab and have a go.
• 1:45:56
  I'd love to.
• 1:45:57
  And I could show my crap horsemanship and get walked over.
• 1:46:01
  It's like always shaming, like when you sit on a simulator.
• 1:46:04
  Oh yeah, I really do sit off to the right, don't I?
• 1:46:06
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:46:07
  Ann Hemingway: I'm like, Oh my God, what's going on?
• 1:46:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Hi.
• 1:46:14
  Brilliant.
• 1:46:15
  I'm so glad I'm so glad you let us know about this because when you said
• 1:46:19
  that you were putting this VR thing together my mind immediately went to a
• 1:46:25
  girl that I was working with about two years ago, who was, I live in Germany,
• 1:46:30
  as you know, and we work with a lot of kids who come from an international
• 1:46:34
  school and she was South Korean.
• 1:46:37
  And really, really, really horse obsessed, like,
• 1:46:47
  lived it, breathed it.
• 1:46:48
  And her family, they had to go back to South Korea.
• 1:46:52
  And I was like, well, I hope you can keep going with the horses.
• 1:46:56
  And the mum said, Rupert, there's no way.
• 1:46:59
  You know, and she just explained life and soul.
• 1:47:02
  And she explained how the horse world, as limited as it is, their works.
• 1:47:08
  And how over You know, it's only for a very tiny sliver of people and then it's,
• 1:47:15
  as you said, also Rupert, the problem is, is that, you know, our society is so, this
• 1:47:20
  was her words old school in terms of its harsh approach to teaching that there's no
• 1:47:25
  way that my daughter could cope with that.
• 1:47:29
  And it may be really sad to think that there was this girl who used to ride
• 1:47:35
  with us through these forests in Germany.
• 1:47:40
  She wasn't going to be able to do that anymore and I knew it was breaking her
• 1:47:43
  heart and she Contacts me from time to time asking about the horses and I sent
• 1:47:48
  her, you know pictures and vids of them and so on but something like this, you
• 1:47:53
  know, if she was sitting in the middle of a concrete, you know wasteland in Or
• 1:48:01
  be it a luxurious one still it's concrete as concrete Something like this would be
• 1:48:06
  Ann Hemingway: really wonderful Yeah, she's still got that connection and
• 1:48:10
  also they'll be able to Practice, you know, being a really good horsewoman
• 1:48:17
  and then leaving sales career and going somewhere where she can ride
• 1:48:21
  and be with horses however she wants when she's grown up kind of thing.
• 1:48:24
  Right,
• 1:48:24
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah, because as you say, it would, it would hone the
• 1:48:26
  skills, it would keep the skills alive.
• 1:48:30
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah.
• 1:48:31
  It's brilliant.
• 1:48:32
  Yeah.
• 1:48:32
  So, yeah.
• 1:48:33
  That's exciting.
• 1:48:34
  Another dream.
• 1:48:35
  I don't know how I have time.
• 1:48:36
  I don't have enough life left for all these things, but I'm working on it.
• 1:48:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, we know that we can bend reality.
• 1:48:43
  Yeah.
• 1:48:46
  Parallel universes.
• 1:48:48
  Exactly.
• 1:48:49
  At the same time.
• 1:48:49
  I'm a great believer in them.
• 1:48:51
  I refuse to believe that I can't do something.
• 1:48:53
  It's just, you know, logic is there to be defied.
• 1:48:56
  I've always felt.
• 1:48:57
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:48:58
  Don't say no because it just sets me off.
• 1:49:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:49:02
  Yeah.
• 1:49:03
  Oh, thanks for the info.
• 1:49:04
  Okay.
• 1:49:08
  Cause what are you, you know, we've talked about dreams.
• 1:49:11
  Is there something you're working on right now that you're really excited about?
• 1:49:15
  Kezia Sullivan: Yeah, so I'm always excited to work with, we're working
• 1:49:18
  with a few organizations at the moment, looking at getting more of
• 1:49:22
  an evidence base for their work.
• 1:49:24
  And we're also looking into the, into really compiling what we know already
• 1:49:29
  because at a certain point we're just going to have it in a kind of binder that
• 1:49:32
  you can throw at people, and hopefully it'll weigh about two and a half kilos.
• 1:49:38
  Rupert Isaacson: So that won't be with the goggles on, that will actually
• 1:49:40
  be a proper bruise on the head.
• 1:49:41
  A real, a real brick.
• 1:49:44
  Kezia Sullivan: Yeah, it's going
• 1:49:44
  Rupert Isaacson: to be a brick.
• 1:49:45
  Make a satisfying thunk.
• 1:49:47
  Yeah,
• 1:49:48
  Kezia Sullivan: just to kind of streamline the process for people,
• 1:49:51
  I suppose, of really translating the many facets of the practice.
• 1:49:57
  Rupert Isaacson: What would be in that binder and who
• 1:49:59
  would you give that binder to?
• 1:50:01
  Kezia Sullivan: So in the binder would be part of the so I
• 1:50:05
  suppose this is the dream binder.
• 1:50:07
  Is how it works and why it works and who it works for and what
• 1:50:14
  it works for with those people.
• 1:50:16
  And as I said, how best to do it so that it's a nice symbiotic relationship.
• 1:50:22
  And I think that stretches even further than between the horses and
• 1:50:25
  the participants, but all the way out to, you know, communities and
• 1:50:28
  infrastructures and things like that.
• 1:50:31
  Because we, you know, when, whenever you.
• 1:50:37
  To alleviate problem for a group of people, whatever that problem is, kind
• 1:50:42
  of problems breed problems, right?
• 1:50:43
  Which means that solutions breed solutions, and then slowly everything
• 1:50:47
  gets kind of more peaceable, we hope.
• 1:50:51
  Rupert Isaacson: So, but the binder, would that, would that be for local
• 1:50:56
  authorities, for example, who might fund?
• 1:50:58
  Or would it be for prospective people getting into the field or both?
• 1:51:04
  Kezia Sullivan: Yeah, I think both but also, Yeah, really
• 1:51:08
  for the decision makers.
• 1:51:10
  So whether it's looking at where funding goes at a policy level, or whether
• 1:51:15
  it's a school deciding, you know, do we send them here or to something else,
• 1:51:19
  Ann Hemingway: it would be that.
• 1:51:22
  So that would be a collection of core outcomes for people who are buying,
• 1:51:29
  pairing, setting up, establishing.
• 1:51:35
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, so, so it would be if you were setting a place up, you could
• 1:51:39
  have this binder and then you could go along with that to your local authority
• 1:51:43
  and say, see, this is why it doesn't suck.
• 1:51:45
  This is why you should fund us.
• 1:51:46
  Yeah.
• 1:51:47
  Kezia Sullivan: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:51:48
  Cause you know, it's still, it's gaining recognition, but it still doesn't really
• 1:51:52
  complete, you know, people are still kind of having to explain why it doesn't suck.
• 1:51:56
  Yeah.
• 1:51:57
  Yeah.
• 1:51:57
  If we can make that easier than good.
• 1:52:00
  Rupert Isaacson: And I like the idea of also having in there a series of
• 1:52:02
  guidelines for how to keep the horse.
• 1:52:05
  Because also from a local authority point of view, even if they don't
• 1:52:09
  really care, they know that they sort of will be held to it by
• 1:52:13
  animal rights people and so forth.
• 1:52:15
  And that that's becoming more and more people under, you know, we're all
• 1:52:20
  more and more under scrutiny for this.
• 1:52:22
  So I think to give people a series of best practices, which are recommended will also
• 1:52:30
  help them to avoid that sort of trouble.
• 1:52:33
  It thinks that they might not have, might not have occurred to them in the way
• 1:52:36
  they're keeping their horses just because that's the way it's always been done.
• 1:52:39
  I think we've all grown up with that to some degree.
• 1:52:42
  And
• 1:52:44
  Ann Hemingway: there's another dimension to that really, which is about
• 1:52:47
  rewilding, rewilding of the natural environment to increase biodiversity.
• 1:52:52
  And horses are equines are used.
• 1:52:55
  or are part of that rewarding often because they're an ancient grazer.
• 1:53:01
  And they help to manage the environment in a very healthy way.
• 1:53:04
  So all the things that we thought about traditionally about our horses,
• 1:53:08
  you get a horse thick paddocks and, you know, you don't want to put horses
• 1:53:11
  on the land because they mess it up.
• 1:53:13
  Well, in fact, the poaching, the lawns and the rust that they create
• 1:53:19
  are very healthy and very positive for increasing biodiversity.
• 1:53:24
  And Nett, the big estate that's been doing that for the last 20,
• 1:53:28
  25 years, is it 20, 25 years?
• 1:53:31
  In the south of England they have small ponies on there and they have
• 1:53:34
  cows, these very ancient village cows with long horns because they break up
• 1:53:39
  the land and they graze on different things, but they don't graze everything.
• 1:53:43
  They're picky.
• 1:53:44
  And that's what you want.
• 1:53:45
  You want, you know, thistles and stinging nettles and gorse and whatever it is.
• 1:53:51
  You want a variety of different levels of bush.
• 1:53:54
  And then you want lawns where the grass is short for some butterflies.
• 1:53:57
  And overall that, that increases biodiversity.
• 1:54:01
  It looks messy to us and we're terrible in the horse world for
• 1:54:05
  trying to keep everything clean and non messy but actually we manage
• 1:54:11
  millions of acres globally for horses and we could be, they could be our
• 1:54:16
  friends for rewilding that acreage.
• 1:54:18
  Around increasing biodiversity as well.
• 1:54:22
  That also needs to be in Kes
• 1:54:26
  . Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:54:26
  We'll make sure of it.
• 1:54:28
  I'm a, I'm a, I'm a big fan of Rewilding and, and one of the things which we do
• 1:54:33
  with, um, when we do horse boy courses, movement method courses is we always
• 1:54:36
  have people plant trees as part of it.
• 1:54:38
  Yeah.
• 1:54:40
  Yeah.
• 1:54:40
  And we, we, I try and plant a tree for every day of my life and
• 1:54:43
  it's actually not that difficult.
• 1:54:44
  What we do is we go out with the kids and we gather in shopping bags.
• 1:54:49
  in cities, acorns and chestnuts and things like that falling on concrete.
• 1:54:54
  And then we take them out and plant them along fence lines.
• 1:54:56
  And it's amazing how they come up.
• 1:54:57
  Yeah.
• 1:54:58
  So if you're working with a kid over, say, or any client over more than
• 1:55:03
  one, what more than one year, they'll tend to see their line of acorns
• 1:55:08
  Ann Hemingway: emerge.
• 1:55:08
  It's very exciting.
• 1:55:10
  Rupert Isaacson: And I'm, I'm always trying to get horse people
• 1:55:13
  to plant their fence lines.
• 1:55:15
  Yeah, I like hydro.
• 1:55:17
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, I do too.
• 1:55:18
  And I like to let it get on my little bit of land.
• 1:55:21
  I like to the hedges to be thick.
• 1:55:24
  Yeah.
• 1:55:24
  Because what I've noticed is the more brambles and stuff you have, the baby
• 1:55:30
  trees come up on their own in there.
• 1:55:32
  They do.
• 1:55:32
  Because they don't get eaten by the deer or the horses.
• 1:55:35
  They're protected, you know?
• 1:55:36
  Absolutely.
• 1:55:37
  And they actually get the chance to get going, so, absolutely.
• 1:55:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:55:41
  And the
• 1:55:41
  Ann Hemingway: most, it's that interconnect, it's that interconnection
• 1:55:44
  and those relationships.
• 1:55:46
  It's that web of life and, and the ecosystem in so many different ways
• 1:55:51
  has the opportunity to benefit.
• 1:55:53
  Benefit the land that they work on, the communities they work with and the people
• 1:55:58
  that they have passed through there.
• 1:56:01
  Rupert Isaacson: So would you say as we're approaching the two hour mark
• 1:56:06
  and there's so much more to go with.
• 1:56:08
  So I'd actually quite like to have you guys on again, if that would be all right.
• 1:56:11
  And we could develop this further.
• 1:56:14
  There's a question I'd like to ask you now.
• 1:56:17
  Which is kind of where we began, which is you got into this through public
• 1:56:23
  health and obviously your love of horses, but basically through public health and
• 1:56:27
  behavior change, we've now talked, we've gotten all the way through some of the
• 1:56:32
  studies and then also how you keep the equines well, which is part of keeping
• 1:56:37
  humans well, because if humans keeping equines well, and then we got into
• 1:56:40
  rewilding is, and I talked about hunter gatherers, And the hunter gatherers that
• 1:56:47
  I spent time with are always the most functional human beings I've ever met.
• 1:56:53
  I've never met more functional human beings than the son Kalahari
• 1:56:56
  Bushman that I've hung out with in Botswana and Namibia.
• 1:56:59
  They just are the nicest people on the planet.
• 1:57:02
  And is it in fact what we need in public health.
• 1:57:10
  Yeah.
• 1:57:10
  Is what we need the rewilding of the human brain?
• 1:57:13
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, we need to see ourselves as part of nature and that
• 1:57:18
  nature, we are nature and nature is us and we are, it doesn't do us, we don't
• 1:57:24
  do ourselves any favours thinking we're above or not impacted by it or we don't
• 1:57:29
  need it or that we're in control of it.
• 1:57:33
  All of those things have proved very negative for us.
• 1:57:36
  We need, we need to be humble and realize that we are, our, our well
• 1:57:42
  being is totally dependent on us realizing that we're part of nature and
• 1:57:47
  engaging with that side of ourselves.
• 1:57:49
  Yeah, absolutely accepting imperfection and dealing and dealing with it and
• 1:57:55
  not wanting to be tidy all the time.
• 1:57:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, phew, because luckily you can see my zoom, but you can't
• 1:58:02
  the wall, but you can't see the floor.
• 1:58:05
  Ann Hemingway: You know why it's dark in here.
• 1:58:06
  Yeah.
• 1:58:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:58:08
  And I noticed Kez has blurred out.
• 1:58:09
  Yeah.
• 1:58:11
  Very wise.
• 1:58:13
  Kez has been in my house.
• 1:58:14
  She knows that there's no, there's no corner without mess.
• 1:58:17
  Listen, I think a lot of people would like to know how they
• 1:58:20
  can get in contact with you.
• 1:58:21
  So, And can you fire away?
• 1:58:23
  What, what are the contacts that people can
• 1:58:25
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, my email is open to everyone.
• 1:58:28
  I'm a Hemingway.
• 1:58:30
  That's A-H-E-M-I-N-G-W-A y@bournemouth.ac.uk.
• 1:58:40
  And it's B-O-U-R-N, EAC uk.
• 1:58:46
  But I, I'm sure you can find it if you put, if you put me and Hemingway, I'm
• 1:58:50
  without an e and Hemingway with one m.
• 1:58:53
  You put me into the internet, then I, I, I come up.
• 1:58:56
  Rupert Isaacson: And, and Hemingway without any, I like how you're
• 1:58:59
  a Hemingway, not the Hemingway.
• 1:59:01
  Yeah,
• 1:59:02
  Ann Hemingway: although it's spelt the same way.
• 1:59:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:59:04
  Okay.
• 1:59:05
  So, so, so, and, and Hemingway, and Hemingway altogether.
• 1:59:09
  Yeah,
• 1:59:11
  Ann Hemingway: no, you can just to Google me, just put it
• 1:59:14
  Rupert Isaacson: in.
• 1:59:15
  Just Google Anne Hemingway, born with university.
• 1:59:18
  And your email will come up.
• 1:59:19
  It just come up.
• 1:59:20
  Okay.
• 1:59:21
  Okay.
• 1:59:21
  That's easy.
• 1:59:22
  All right, Kez.
• 1:59:24
  Kezia Sullivan: Yeah, I think best to Google Ann, because I have a slightly
• 1:59:27
  different email address for you.
• 1:59:29
  Maybe you have two . But in terms of yeah, in terms of my contact
• 1:59:34
  details, you can get in touch with me at kSullivan@hotmail.co uk, so
• 1:59:42
  that would be K-E-Z-I-A Sullivan, S-U-L-L-I-V-A-N at hotmail co uk.
• 1:59:52
  Or there's a website, which is again, just keziasullivan.
• 1:59:55
  co.
• 1:59:55
  Rupert Isaacson: uk.
• 1:59:56
  And if people wanted to have you guys come in and consult with them and actually
• 2:00:00
  help them figure out how to compile their data, how to get studies done.
• 2:00:06
  What we didn't go into gosh, cause we've got the conversation got so interesting.
• 2:00:10
  What we slightly forgot to go into, perhaps we should go
• 2:00:14
  into that a little bit now.
• 2:00:15
  Is.
• 2:00:16
  You do have mechanisms for helping people get some studies out there, right?
• 2:00:23
  Without having to raise a million dollars to go do something at a university and
• 2:00:28
  without it taking 57, 000 years to do and without having to know these high
• 2:00:38
  priests of these universities somehow.
• 2:00:41
  You guys have streamlined it.
• 2:00:43
  Can you just give us a bit of the quick and dirty on how that can happen?
• 2:00:48
  So if someone thinks they've got data and they'd like to get some studies
• 2:00:53
  or a study done on them, what they do that's published and peer reviewed
• 2:00:57
  or whatever, what would you do?
• 2:01:01
  How's that?
• 2:01:01
  How will it work?
• 2:01:05
  Kezia Sullivan: So the most common thing that happens is that people will
• 2:01:10
  get in touch with either me or Ann.
• 2:01:12
  We'd have, we'd have a meeting to look at what the needs are and to
• 2:01:16
  see what kind of, what kind of thing might be useful and put together
• 2:01:22
  kind of a plan for maybe doing that.
• 2:01:24
  And yeah, sometimes that's research.
• 2:01:26
  Sometimes, you know, if people haven't got any data, then we'll
• 2:01:29
  help them to design the outcome measures or to find suitable ones.
• 2:01:34
  Or if people have a lot of data, then we'll, we'll.
• 2:01:37
  Start where
• 2:01:38
  Rupert Isaacson: they are.
• 2:01:38
  So basically the shout out is listeners if you think that you've got good data
• 2:01:46
  If you think you've got a program that it would be helped if there was a study,
• 2:01:52
  maybe it will help you find funding Etc.
• 2:01:54
  But also it also just helps the general field develop Please contact
• 2:01:58
  Ann and Kez and they will help you get going on the road to that which
• 2:02:06
  Might have seemed like an inaccessible or impossible thing You It isn't.
• 2:02:12
  It can be done.
• 2:02:17
  Ann Hemingway: And we're not the only few on the road, as I said.
• 2:02:19
  We're not, you know, we're not the only people.
• 2:02:21
  There are other people who are working in the area as well.
• 2:02:23
  So, sometimes you can make relationships, sometimes it's easier for us to make
• 2:02:27
  relationships with other academics too.
• 2:02:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so you might, you could look at them and say, well,
• 2:02:34
  if not you, you would put them in contact with other academics then.
• 2:02:38
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah.
• 2:02:39
  Kezia Sullivan: Yeah.
• 2:02:40
  Yeah.
• 2:02:40
  I'll always refer people on if,
• 2:02:42
  Rupert Isaacson: if that's useful.
• 2:02:43
  Brilliant.
• 2:02:44
  Okay.
• 2:02:45
  Okay.
• 2:02:46
  Well, it is incredibly useful.
• 2:02:47
  I know this myself because, although it never occurred to us
• 2:02:52
  to get studies done on us, the fact that we did, or the fact that it
• 2:02:56
  happened, has been massively helpful.
• 2:02:59
  And to the point that I hope you guys will attend, there's a, we've
• 2:03:04
  been asked by the Medical School of Eastern Virginia in the USA to put
• 2:03:11
  on a neuroscience conference this September, which is astonishing to me.
• 2:03:17
  We got asked by medical school to do that.
• 2:03:18
  But what we, that's going to be a gathering of academics.
• 2:03:21
  There's some really good headline speakers there.
• 2:03:23
  Temple Grandin's going to be the headliner and Dr.
• 2:03:25
  Stephen Peters, who's the, you know, Autistic and a
• 2:03:28
  neuroscientist and a horseman, Dr.
• 2:03:31
  Alison Murtry, but I would like if I would, I would hope that
• 2:03:34
  you guys would be able to come.
• 2:03:36
  And then you guys also mentioned the Hetty.
• 2:03:40
  I guess people, listeners should know that there's a conference, right?
• 2:03:42
  This Hetty is having his conference in June, is it?
• 2:03:46
  June, in Budapest.
• 2:03:47
  In Budapest.
• 2:03:48
  Great excuse to go to Budapest.
• 2:03:50
  Yeah.
• 2:03:52
  The reason I would say, urge you listeners to go and do that stuff
• 2:03:56
  if you're running programs is that's where you will meet these types of
• 2:04:00
  academics and people doing this research.
• 2:04:03
  And if you meet them, then you know them and you can ring them up and
• 2:04:06
  hassle them and say, hey, what about my thing and get something done.
• 2:04:11
  But if you don't.
• 2:04:12
  ever make contact with them, you might not know.
• 2:04:16
  So things like HETI are a great resource, it's true.
• 2:04:19
  How many other universities, just before we wrap up, in the UK that you
• 2:04:24
  know of and are doing this kind of research into the equine assisted?
• 2:04:27
  I
• 2:04:28
  Ann Hemingway: think all those universities that have been doing
• 2:04:31
  studies looking at horses and horse care and things for a very long time.
• 2:04:36
  And there's also kind of, parts of universities that do
• 2:04:40
  animal spindly kind of things.
• 2:04:43
  And they're dotted around all over the UK as well.
• 2:04:46
  It's a bit less maybe in terms of the horse human connection,
• 2:04:52
  the horse human interaction.
• 2:04:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Are you the only ones doing it or are there a couple of other
• 2:04:58
  universities people should look to?
• 2:05:00
  Well, for
• 2:05:01
  Ann Hemingway: nature based interventions.
• 2:05:04
  There's Exodus doing work on it and Darby, I think, are doing work on it.
• 2:05:10
  And there may be academics in their own in their local
• 2:05:14
  university who are working on it.
• 2:05:15
  It's worthwhile having a look through You know, the websites and things
• 2:05:19
  to look at what people are doing.
• 2:05:21
  Because sometimes people do, if they're doing their PhD on it, for instance,
• 2:05:24
  or if they're doing a long study, they may not be publishing anything.
• 2:05:28
  You know what I mean?
• 2:05:28
  It's quite hard to know who's doing what.
• 2:05:30
  I've, I've examined a couple of PhDs on equine assisted in, in Derby.
• 2:05:36
  In Derby?
• 2:05:37
  Yeah.
• 2:05:38
  Okay.
• 2:05:39
  So yeah, so it is happening.
• 2:05:46
  Yeah, it depends.
• 2:05:46
  It's more ethology or, you know, learning about horses maybe or, or
• 2:05:52
  learning about horse welfare or how to train horses or the tacks or, you
• 2:05:57
  know, saddles, you know, there's a whole range of different specialities.
• 2:06:01
  It's just a bit more limited in terms of that.
• 2:06:04
  Do
• 2:06:05
  Rupert Isaacson: you think it's fair to say that University of Bournemouth is, is
• 2:06:09
  pioneering the field in the UK for this, looking at the equine assisted world?
• 2:06:14
  Ann Hemingway: Well, I don't know.
• 2:06:15
  It makes my head feel too big.
• 2:06:16
  I don't think I can say that.
• 2:06:19
  Rupert Isaacson: Which means it is, I'll take that as a yes.
• 2:06:21
  All right.
• 2:06:22
  Ann Hemingway: Because there are other people who've been studying it for
• 2:06:24
  a lot longer than me, but they're, they're looking at it in different ways.
• 2:06:27
  And there's also people studying with other animals, you know, therapy animals.
• 2:06:31
  So it might be dogs or cats or a variety of different things.
• 2:06:36
  And then there's a whole vet thing as well.
• 2:06:40
  You know, there's all, there's loads of vet schools, but But I would say
• 2:06:45
  I haven't seen a lot coming out from anywhere, particularly around EAS.
• 2:06:52
  Do you
• 2:06:52
  Rupert Isaacson: see the University of Bournemouth perhaps being able to offer a
• 2:06:58
  degree course at some point in the future?
• 2:07:01
  equine assisted best practice or equine, you know, something
• 2:07:05
  around the equine assisted field.
• 2:07:07
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, I mean, that's problematic with universities in the
• 2:07:10
  UK at the moment because they want to have lots of students on their courses
• 2:07:14
  because of their financial situation.
• 2:07:17
  Yes.
• 2:07:17
  So, yeah, I mean, students learn, who come to the university, learn about the
• 2:07:23
  research that we're doing on the, on the, on a variety of different programs.
• 2:07:28
  Already, but it's more of a multidisciplinary approach.
• 2:07:32
  Right.
• 2:07:33
  So I guess nothing's impossible.
• 2:07:36
  You know, nothing, nothing's impossible.
• 2:07:38
  Never say never kind of thing.
• 2:07:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, that would be another, maybe another dream of mine
• 2:07:43
  would be that people going into that field might be able to go and do it at a
• 2:07:47
  university and or several universities, you know, and that, that this is now
• 2:07:53
  look ahead 10 years and maybe it's just become a, an accepted field in mental
• 2:07:57
  Ann Hemingway: health.
• 2:07:57
  Yeah, exactly.
• 2:07:58
  And I think there is, there's a program which has been developed,
• 2:08:02
  which the horse course and other providers, Horse World as well, I
• 2:08:07
  think is starting to provide a diploma.
• 2:08:09
  Which has just been launched last year which was a great step forward.
• 2:08:14
  And it's accredited as kind of an adult education program.
• 2:08:18
  Yeah,
• 2:08:18
  Rupert Isaacson: that
• 2:08:18
  Ann Hemingway: is accredited.
• 2:08:19
  Yeah.
• 2:08:20
  So that, so that, so that's the big step forward anyway.
• 2:08:24
  But yeah, it would be, it would be great.
• 2:08:26
  And, and I was contacted by a nursing school in New York last year who
• 2:08:32
  were putting it as part of their, Undergraduate program as a mental,
• 2:08:36
  you know, for mental health nurses.
• 2:08:40
  Rupert Isaacson: There's a man in Ireland who you should be in contact with.
• 2:08:42
  And I wish I could get him on the show, but he refuses to speak, do any public
• 2:08:46
  speaking at all, but he's extraordinary.
• 2:08:48
  He's called, he's called David Doyle and he works for the St.
• 2:08:52
  Joseph's foundation in County Cork.
• 2:08:55
  And he, he runs something called Le Skinnet Farm.
• 2:09:00
  I'll put you in touch with him.
• 2:09:01
  Listeners, you need to know who David Doyle is.
• 2:09:03
  And he's created one of the most cutting edge equine assisted
• 2:09:08
  places that I've ever seen.
• 2:09:11
  He, like me, has a personal story.
• 2:09:12
  It's his daughter, and it grew up from there, but it's now, there's
• 2:09:17
  now, they're now opening multiple facsimile centers around Ireland
• 2:09:22
  because it's worked so incredibly well.
• 2:09:24
  And he has also managed to get accredited courses going through
• 2:09:29
  some of the universities there.
• 2:09:31
  So, Perhaps I could put you in touch with him and then for listeners who
• 2:09:36
  David Doyle just the skin it or St.
• 2:09:40
  Joseph's Foundation.
• 2:09:43
  It's Charleville in Ireland.
• 2:09:46
  Like Charles, Charles without the S, with a vil on the end of it.
• 2:09:50
  He's one of the great unsung heroes of the field.
• 2:09:53
  And he seems stubbornly insisting on remaining so annoyingly.
• 2:09:57
  But for what you're doing, Anne and Kez, I think it's, it's people
• 2:10:01
  like you and he must collaborate.
• 2:10:03
  Because it's bringing, it's bringing the field forward in in ways that we couldn't
• 2:10:07
  have dreamed of 10 or 15 years ago.
• 2:10:09
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, that sounds really exciting.
• 2:10:11
  Maybe we could persuade him if he kept his camera turned off.
• 2:10:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Maybe, maybe you guys could persuade him.
• 2:10:19
  He's very good at saying no to me, but I'm not, maybe.
• 2:10:21
  Ann Hemingway: Maybe we'll try a two pronged attack, three pronged attack.
• 2:10:24
  Indeed.
• 2:10:25
  And he could have an avatar of his choosing.
• 2:10:28
  Say what, sorry?
• 2:10:29
  No, no, no.
• 2:10:29
  avatar or a face of his children instead, so he could get one of the
• 2:10:35
  horses to speak for him or something.
• 2:10:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, my imagination just went into virtual reality mode.
• 2:10:44
  But yeah, yeah, I bet.
• 2:10:46
  Get those goggles on before Kez thunks me with a new book for Brick.
• 2:10:52
  Listen, guys, thank you so, so much for coming on.
• 2:10:55
  Would you come on again and we can develop this further?
• 2:10:59
  Ann Hemingway: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:10:59
  It was really a lot of fun.
• 2:11:01
  I hope people were okay with us rambling around the topic in general.
• 2:11:05
  But it was a lot of fun to do.
• 2:11:07
  I hope it's a lot of fun to listen to as well.
• 2:11:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, no, you guys were actually very, very,
• 2:11:11
  you've been very succinct.
• 2:11:12
  I mean, you've told us what, how the field is developing, what's going
• 2:11:17
  on, how people can get studies done.
• 2:11:18
  This, uh, thing, for example, this, this domestic violence
• 2:11:23
  study that you guys have done.
• 2:11:25
  This is groundbreaking.
• 2:11:26
  And now the stuff with the virtual reality and the EEGs and amazing.
• 2:11:30
  Oh, EEGGs.
• 2:11:31
  I only just got, I got a slow answer.
• 2:11:34
  I should have gotten there.
• 2:11:36
  I'm
• 2:11:36
  Ann Hemingway: going to steal that one.
• 2:11:39
  Rupert Isaacson: I want 30%.
• 2:11:41
  I mean, I mean, 50.
• 2:11:42
  Sorry.
• 2:11:43
  Okay.
• 2:11:43
  Yeah, no, it's so there's a lot within those studies that
• 2:11:46
  I'd like to go into further.
• 2:11:48
  But I think what listeners have come away with is knowing that not only
• 2:11:52
  is the field advancing in this way, but they themselves can get studies
• 2:11:56
  done and that they can contact you.
• 2:11:59
  And I know just as someone who has a program that's of
• 2:12:04
  incredible value to people.
• 2:12:06
  Because it's often seen as something unobtainable and basically you're, you're
• 2:12:11
  demystifying it, which is a great service.
• 2:12:14
  It's a great public service you guys are doing.
• 2:12:17
  So thank you.
• 2:12:18
  Ann Hemingway: Thank you.
• 2:12:18
  And thank you for the opportunity.
• 2:12:21
  For sure.
• 2:12:22
  All
• 2:12:23
  Rupert Isaacson: right.
• 2:12:23
  So chaps, Anne Hemingway, Bournemouth University, Google her.
• 2:12:27
  Kez, just give us your email one more time in case they forgot to run.
• 2:12:30
  Yeah,
• 2:12:31
  Kezia Sullivan: so it's K E Z I A, Sullivan, S U L L I V A N, at hotmail.
• 2:12:39
  co.
• 2:12:39
  uk.
• 2:12:40
  Perfect.
• 2:12:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Get in touch with them and get a study done, basically.
• 2:12:43
  All right.
• 2:12:45
  Okay.
• 2:12:46
  So until next time, thank you guys.
• 2:12:48
  I'm going to hit that dreaded red button, but I'm really grateful that you came
• 2:12:52
  on and I look forward to the next time.
• 2:12:56
  Ann Hemingway: Thank you for the opportunity.
• 2:12:57
  Bye bye.
• 2:12:58
  My pleasure.
• 2:12:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Bye bye.
• 2:12:59
  thank you for joining us.
• 2:13:00
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