July 2024 Update

Renew’s Volunteer Coordinator, Elizabeth, and her husband are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their first child early next year. Join us in celebrating this miracle and exciting time with the Turners!

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Renew and Resilience Launch Partnership

Earlier this month, a new partnership was launched with the express goal of coming alongside survivors of sexual assault. The white “clubhouse” was reimagined into the “cottage”, a quiet and confidential space for conversations and healing to occur. Renew’s Administrative Coordinator and Instructor, Emily, and Resilience Trauma Therapist, Tori Conner, are the champions behind this exciting partnership. Below is a brief overview of how this partnership came about and what it entails.

Could you share a little bit about yourself?

I am currently a trauma therapist at Resilience: Advocates for Ending Violence, and I also maintain a small caseload through a local group private practice. I have been in the field of social work in varying roles for about eight years. I grew up riding horses and volunteering at a couple different therapeutic horseback riding centers and throughout my life I have experienced and witnessed the power of connection between healing, horses, and humans. It has always been a dream of mine to include horses in my career, but I was not sure how to make a feasible connection between horses and therapy until I started working at Resilience. – Tori

I have a bachelors in social work and have worked at Renew as a PATH Intl. Certified Therapeutic Riding Instructor for five years. I recently obtained my Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning (ESMHL) certification through PATH Intl. which allows me to partner with mental health professionals and educators in using horses to aid in individuals’ mental health and learning objectives. – Emily

How did this partnership come about?

Resilience is always looking for ways to partner with other organizations in our community to best serve our survivors. Through numerous conversations with the staff at Renew and Resilience, we came to the conclusion that creating an equine-assisted support group for survivors of sexual assault would be an attainable way to explore this partnership.  – Tori

What are your specific roles in bringing horses and humans together to foster healing?

In order to remain compliant with PATH standards, Emily and I have different roles that prioritize the function and safety of both human and equine participants. Emily is the Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning (ESMHL) and I am the licensed clinician. While I bring the trauma-informed therapeutic perspective, Emily brings an incredibly valuable set of skills because of her experience running and supporting previous equine-assisted groups and camps, as well as her unique and invaluable knowledge of each horse at Renew. – Tori

In the work Tori and I are doing together, my main focus is the horses’ safety and wellbeing and Tori’s is that of the clients we’re serving. Horses have mental and emotional needs as well and we want to make sure those are being met when partnering with them. Together, we came up with the focus of each session and the activities we would facilitate using horses. – Emily

What specific ways will partnering with the horses impact lives?

Horses make fantastic partners in this work for numerous reasons. One of the many reasons is because equine-assisted psychotherapy fosters authentic opportunities for survivors to experience vulnerability, empowerment, and connection in a unique way that minimizes threats, demands, or assumptions. The survivors who participate can choose the amount of engagement they are comfortable with.

Additionally, horses provide opportunities for survivors to experience emotional awareness because the emotions a person may be unknowingly harboring can assist individuals in recognizing what they are feeling, how feelings are showing up, and how feelings can send communicative signals to others. Not only can horses provide an authentic response to humans, being near a horse can bring a sense of peace, calm, and connection.

Not only does this opportunity provide unique and powerful connections with horses, but it has also provided unique and powerful connections with other survivors. …While Emily and I thoughtfully and intentionally created a curriculum for each session, the survivors participating in the group have supported each other in ways we could never have imagined. We hope to continue to create these opportunities for survivors, and hopefully to one day include kids! – Tori

Three things are coming to mind on why horses are impactful in this work: their size, their nature of always being in the present moment (no prefrontal cortex), and the way their heartbeats regulate ours. I’ve already seen it mean so much to someone that a 1000 pound animal would want to be with them and would willingly follow them around. Because they are prey animals and so in-tune with our emotions, they are quick to point out when someone’s emotions don’t match their demeanor and help us to take an honest look at what we’re actually feeling. And again, due to their size, their slow heartbeat will slowly bring ours back to baseline. – Emily

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Upcoming Events

While we don’t want to wish this beautiful Michigan summer away, we are starting to get pretty excited about our upcoming fall events on the farm! Back this year are a couple of Renew family favorites – the Blessing of the Horses and the Fall Festival. Both events are free and all of the community is invited to take part. We’ll gather at the entrance to the inside arena at 1:00 before heading out to the paddocks and praying over our herd and commission them for another year of serving our community. Afterwards, you’ll want to stay for all of the free, family fun, including carriage rides, photo booth, snacks, barrel train rides, pumpkin painting, miniature horses, and so much more.

Blessing of the Horses
Saturday, September 21 | 1:00-1:30P

Fall Festival
Saturday, September 21 | 2:00-4:00P

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