The innate ability of horses is being harnessed in a science-based program at Cooroibah to help a diverse range of people’s needs from assistance with physical and mental health issues to corporate team building.
Positive Pathway Lifeskills is an equine-assisted learning program established last year by Suellen Brooks that with the help of Business Mentoring Noosa is achieving results and growing rapidly.
Research has shown that appropriate interaction with horses can be therapeutic to both adults and children.
Humans have long known that horses sense fear. Inversely, they sense calm. Horses are herd animals used to taking in slight adjustments in mood from others in the herd. When they are interacting with humans they are actually able to synchronize their heartbeats to ours—they can hear your heart beat from 70m away. This allows therapists to gauge a patient’s emotional state by observing the horse.
“We pick up on a horses’ body language,” Suellen said.
“They tell us when something is not working well. The horses won’t move or they will try and get away.”
Suellen said the facilitators design their sessions to have a specific objective that they hone in on that is relevant to their client.
Clients are presented with a problem to solve while working with the horse, privately or in a group.
“They have to understand working as a team, gaining trust, problem solving. It’s not just coming to pat the horse,“ Suellen said.
Suellen said horses act like the missing part of the puzzle. The horse is mindful of a person’s emotions but not judgemental.
“They work on energy, horses do that with each other,“ she said. Working with the horses places people in a state of mindfulness. There’s not much else you can think about when you’re dealing with hundreds of pounds of animal.
The life skills people learn and the confidence they build they take with them into their daily lives.
Suellen hails from Beaudesert, growing up on a farm amongst horses. She came to Noosa in 1995 and built her home on a 2.5 acre property in Cooroibah. She is a qualified teacher with more than 20 years experience teaching children with special needs and also an accomplished horsewoman with competition success at national level. Last year she decided to combine her three passions – special needs education, horses and helping people – to create Positive Pathway Lifeskills.
Before setting up her business, Suellen first qualified as an Equine Assisted Facilitator through the Academy of Equine Assisted Learning, Canada. She then set about building the necessary facilities on her property, particularly a fenced arena with an adjacent well equipped training room. She already had good stabling and horses including three small horses, a breed standing some 90 to 95 cm high with an excellent temperament and a competition horse.
Suellen realised that while she knew a lot about horses and education, she knew less about running a business. She contacted Business Mentoring Noosa and now, eight months later, with their help and guidance and a lot of hard work, Positive Pathways has grown in leaps and bounds.
Suellen’s prime aim is to help youth with special needs and those with wellbeing issues. In addition, schools, parents and families and more recently corporate groups are all Positive Pathway clients. She started by running a number of small group events in order to get the operational side running smoothly and to start building recognition.
As a result of the very positive responses from her initial clients, Suellen now has a busy schedule with regular clients from organisations such as Sunshine Beach High School, Endeavour Foundation and Brainfit, as well as a strong private client base.
Some people participate in single workshops and others enrol in programs over a number of weeks.
Suellen is assisted by Nadine Crawford, who is also qualified as a facilitator.
She has successfully built her business based on a love of learning and imparting knowledge as a teacher and a lifetime of loving, competing and working with horses – all now professionally applied for the benefit of others.
For more information about how Positive Pathways Lifeskills visit www.positivepathways.com.au
If you would like more information on Business Mentoring Noosa visit www.bmn.org.au
