What If Healing Starts Outside The Office

You’ve probably heard people say, “Horses can read you,” but what does that actually mean when mental health treatment is on the line? We’re joined by Daria Williams, a lifetime horseperson who ran a boarding barn for years and now works in a clinical setting. She just completed EAGALA training as an equine specialist, and she breaks down what equine assisted psychotherapy looks like when it’s done with a real framework, real roles, and real responsibility.

We get specific about the EAGALA model: why sessions happen on the ground, how the equine specialist partners with a licensed mental health professional, and how the horses become co-facilitators instead of tools. Daria shares what surprised her most watching animals respond to different clients, and why experienced horse people sometimes have to “do less” to let meaningful moments surface. We also talk about safety in a field with loose horses, goats, and donkeys, and how the team keeps clients safe without escalating fear or shutting down the process.

Then we zoom out to the practical side of building an equine assisted mental health program: finding the right animals, navigating insurance and liability, staffing challenges, marketing, and what typical session pricing can look like. If you’re curious about trauma-informed care, experiential therapy, and how horses can help people step out of the office and back into their bodies, this conversation will give you a grounded, honest starting point. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a horse friend or a therapist, and leave us a review with the question you want answered next.

https://www.eagala.org/

emmajenkinsondressage@gmail.com

https://youtube.com/@emmajenkinsondressage?si=Zt9ma9vtpMK2iZV7

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

Isabeau 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Equestrian Tea Time. I am your host, Isabel Salais. I am in New Hampshire. My co-host is Emma Jenkinson. She's in New Mexico. And in this episode, we spoke to Daria Williams. She is in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Daria William is a lifetime horseperson, having graduated Pony Club and then run her own boarding barn for 20 years. She recently completed an Agala five-day course. I'm going to quote from their website. It is Agala stands for the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association, which is dedicated to revolutionizing mental health treatment by incorporating the profound and therapeutic presence of horses. So she's going to give us her feedback as a lifetime horse professional, what that program was like, and all the new and surprising and interesting things that she learned. If you're not familiar with the area where Daria lives, New Hope, Pennsylvania, it is a gorgeous place to visit. New Hope, Pennsylvania, and Lambertville, New Jersey, Stradlicha other over the Delaware River. This is the area where George Washington had his famous uh Christmas Eve crossing of the Delaware. Then they were big industry towns in the 18th and 19th century, producing and exporting all kinds of goods. And they built a canal system, the Delaware Canal System there has lots of great parks. Um and New Hope turned into a very famous artist colony uh in the 19th uh 60s. So wonderful, cute little towns with great restaurants if you ever want to go and visit them. So here is our conversation with Daria.

Why Daria Pursued EAGALA

Isabeau 1:38

So you were studying for your exams. Did you go and uh take your exam yet? Or ask the exam.

Daria Williams 1:45

So yeah, exam is done. So I'm uh and I did all my surveys, so I'm officially qualified. I should get the certification within three weeks.

Isabeau 1:53

Oh, cool beans. Yeah, all right. Is Emma Emma can you hear us? I don't see your face. There, I see your face. I can't. Emma is in Emma. This is Daria. Daria, this is Emma. Emma, Darry and I uh I worked on her mother's farm and then her farm is in New Jersey for like almost what 20 years.

Daria Williams 2:13

Yeah.

Isabeau 2:14

And Emma is in New Mexico where it's hot and there's snakes. It's heady and windy.

Daria Williams 2:20

Are you guys have pouring rain in New Hampshire right now?

Isabeau 2:23

Uh yes, it's about 74 degrees and raining, so not 106. It's very nice. No, we've had unreasonably actually it popped up on my Facebook feed. It was 100 degrees this time last year. We had a heat wave in the beginning of summer uh last year. It's been a high of 80 for like the past you know, it's been glorious.

Daria Williams 2:44

Yeah, well, last week was horrifying here during the training.

Isabeau 2:47

It was 90 something every day, but and yeah, the training was in Pennsylvania or over in no Mercer County Equestrian Center. All right, do you want me to start with the uh the question? Okay, so what drew you to the Agala program in the first place?

Daria Williams 3:02

Well, I started working at the carrier clinic in Belmade, New Jersey a little over two years ago. And um, I took a job there as the barn care coordinator. So I take help take care of the animals and I do like all the ordering, but in the meantime, part of the reason was is to learn about equine-assisted psychotherapy. So I've just been watching and I've been helping with some groups and some of the corporate team building events. I basically decided that I really wanted to continue my education and become more part of the program and more part of the career. And eventually I want to be able to start this program on the farm I live at now in New Hall, Pennsylvania.

Isabeau 3:44

Awesome.

Daria Williams 3:46

So and then luckily, yeah, luckily there was a training opening right down the road in Pennington, New Jersey, at the Mercer County Equestrian Center. So it just kind of all fell into place. Nice.

Isabeau 3:57

So they ran a certification program for the Igala. They ran a certification, uh, what is it, weekend?

Daria Williams 4:04

It was a five-day program. Oh Wednesday through Saturday, 8 30 to 4 30. Sunday was just like 8 30 to 12 30. But it's a full-time program, so you have to be able to do that, but you need some prerequisites before. So you need about 6,000 hours to become an equine specialist, which is what I trained for. So that's part of the team for the gala model. You need 6,000 hours of hands-on equine experience, it can be a mix of different things, it could be but you need to to really have a long-term background in the equine industry in some forms, and then you have to continue on with at least 20 hours of continued education every year after that. Gotcha. And that can be a mix of different things. Yes. And then for the Agala model, when you do a therapy session, you need an equine specialist, which is what I got certified for, that works with a mental health technician to be able to host one of these therapy sessions. So you work as a team, and then with it with the horses, which are part of the team. So we're all called co-facilitators.

Reading Horses In Therapy Work

Isabeau 5:18

Okay, yeah, all right, cool. Um what surprised you the most about the horses, how the horses respond in a therapeutic setting?

Daria Williams 5:27

Because you're coming at from it as a horse professional, bar leader, spider, and it's it is interesting, and more the stories I've heard because I haven't been able to do it enough. And what the the uh Marion and Tracy Hooper, the instructors for the program, the stories they've told are unbelievably intriguing. And especially it's when you know your own animals that you really can see a difference of their reaction to different clients. So once I have a team set up, it's gonna be very intriguing to see how the horses react to different people compared to what they're going through. So, because the horses, I mean, that's part of the reason why we have the horses, is that they have an innate ability to read emotions and and you know, real feelings of people that we can't see as humans as well. So, I mean, I've noticed it a little bit, the carrier. Um, we have groups, and I watch the kids, and you know, sometimes the horses react to a different girl in the group and they'll spend more time with that person. Sometimes, if there's a quieter person, they're scared, the goats. We have so we have two goats, too many donkeys, and two horses. And sometimes the goats are interesting because they'll if they see a girl standing by themselves, the goats will go talk to one of the girls.

Isabeau 6:51

So that's very cool because that's what you know, the humans' reaction to the animal is what trainers like Warwick Schiller and the emotional horsemanship and uh clicker training people try to get people to start to recognize is the feedback that the animals give in the uh training process. But in traditional training, it's it's one of the most difficult things to teach people is to read the feedback that the animals are giving you. So this program you have entirely, yeah.

Daria Williams 7:20

And the training about that was um exactly how to be able to do that and also to help relate it to the client to continue their story. So you're not looking at you're looking at um uh external patterns and shifts of behavior of the animals, and you're trying to relate it to their story, but you have to be able, you need that equine experience to kind of read what the animals are doing to just help aid with that kind of reaction. But but it's all and it changes all the time, so you just have to and you learn every time from that as well. You learn from the horses, you learn from the clients, and it goes back and forth.

Isabeau 8:00

And yep, yep, yeah, all right, cool. That leads well into my next question. Was that is uh, how is your professional background in the horse industry? How does that is does that help you in this current training, or is it go? Uh are you learning things that go against the way you would have done things in the past, or is this just an enhancement on stuff that you learned in the past?

Daria Williams 8:23

For me, it's an enhancement, only because I've done so many different things in the horse industry and from everything from pony club and the natural horsemanship stuff we've worked with and starting young horses and and dealing with a large I had a large boarding facility, so dealing with the different clients and interacting with so many other different horses, where I've had more experience just from you know interacting and dealing with so many different horses. I've uh dealt with so much of their behavior in different ways. This is kind of enhancing it. And you know, dealing with lots of interesting people along the way too. You know, but maybe in this way I can tie it all together. So I have uh you know medical training, educational training, but life skills and um so this kind of will maybe tie it all together.

Isabeau 9:21

Yeah, yeah, yes. So um, so what are you learning about horses that you didn't know before?

Daria Williams 9:28

Because I've always been able to recognize that that horses have that extraordinary talent and that you can't lie to them. And yes, so not I I'm just more intrigued to to watch the horses because they are really so in so smart. I want to see them in different situations that I have never seen before. Yeah, like I've seen them more in a traditional sense, you know, with clients and boarders and trainers and and different levels of people, but to see them in this setting, it's gonna be very interesting. Yeah.

Isabeau 10:05

No, I can imagine it would be interesting. I mean, for people who've got a lot of experience with horses, you learn over time. That's what reading horses means. You know, you you learn what their body language means and their psychology. The tricky part is getting the people who work with them to be able to read their language too.

Daria Williams 10:23

And many different ways, and it is yeah, if you have a strong background in horses, you kind of have to let that go a little bit. You have to kind of go back to the basics and just read their behavior, yeah. So you have to lose a little bit, and that's a little hard to accept in a way, and even safety for a way, because he galas all on the ground, and a lot of people that come to these therapy sessions have no experience with horses, so you know, you it's called an apostrophe S when you're bringing in your own um self-awareness or or worries, you know, instead of just letting it happen and just go back to the basics, which is tough to do because of horse people, we like to talk and we like to teach people about horses and we want to be able to like, no, don't touch their hind end, or no, you know, like you want to jump in too much. But sometimes some of those mistakes the clients make actually teaches them more, so you have to really kind of control your inner horsey control self and just sort of gotcha, see what happens.

Isabeau 11:37

Yes, no, I there have been on I've seen online at times people pop up horse barn owners moderately horrified because they agreed to host uh some kind of on-the-ground equine facilitated work, and the uh person in charge will take people out into the field, and there'll be people wandering around the field with the horses loose. And the horse owner, the farm owners not entirely sure they're thrilled with what they're saying.

Daria Williams 12:02

Yeah, but it is slightly terrible. Um, but you have to kind of let it go, but you have to watch kids in every direction and see what's happening on, and the goats have horns and donkeys kick and horses bite, and that so it's a lot, it's it's slightly terrifying. And yeah, when even in the training, they took us out to this field, you don't know, even as e as an equine specialist. But I don't know these horses, I don't know how, but it is they're gonna get stepped on. Somebody was sitting on the ground. Do you tell them to stand up? But you know, somebody was sitting on the grass and the horse crawls right up to their face. So do you jump it? Or it yeah, it's it's it'll be a learning experience to be able to balance all that, yeah.

Isabeau 12:54

Oh, so that's part of your job as the equine, the equine person is that you're supposed to manage if people are doing something that's too dangerous, yes, and you're supposed to be able to so you you really have to when you work with your other team member, your mental health technician, um, health professional, you really need to have meetings with them and kind of set some goals and like have ways to communicate with clients, like, okay, but you don't want to also, if they look like they're getting into a dangerous situation, you have to we kind of know this as horse people, especially Isabel.

Daria Williams 13:33

Like, if there's an emergency, you don't want to cause more stress and make it worse. If you bring your energy level up, it could make the situation worse. So you have to be able to wait, you know, have a way to communicate with the clients, like, okay, you know, if you've got a uh an adult or somebody um, and they keep, you know, uh hitting the horse or something, you have to have a constructive way to change their direction of thought or their behavior without escalating what's happening. Yes, because if people get in panic, well, then the animals feel it too. Yes. So you need to really kind of make a plan, but you know, in the horse world, things the strangest things will happen when you can't expect it. So yeah, things happen, but the best thing is to have like a you know a plan of attack, you have to know your animals, trust them, you know, as much as you can, and go from there.

Isabeau 14:26

Like it was more exciting than I thought it was going to be.

Daria Williams 14:30

Yeah, no, you take well if you think about it. I mean, if you have it depends what popular, and there's so many different types of populations you can work with, yeah. Uh, but you if you have someone with severe trauma or you work with veterans or kids with autism, um you know, it brings a lot of variables into the situation with loose animals walking around.

Safety And Team Coordination On Ground

Isabeau 14:52

Oh, yes. Well, you're leading us right into the next question, which was uh, has working alongside the mental health professionals changed how you think about uh about horses?

Daria Williams 15:02

Oh well, not so much horses, but the people. Okay. So I've been brought it up in the training, and another equine specialist brought agreed with me that to be able to really work with the mental health, plus I have a science brain. I like to learn, I like to, I need information. Um, other people probably can go more on the fly, but I want to be able to have a healthier discussion with the mental health professionals to see what they're looking at. Actually, because they've learned body language more from humans. So, how the humans' brain work, all the different types of disorders, keywords, what they're looking for in the conversation of the client, their behavior, you know, all those things, so that I can help read what the person's doing relating to the horses, because it's all supposed to go back out towards the horses. Because normally, if you do therapy, you're just sitting in a room. So the whole point of this is to kind of change that perception to use the horses. So that's why this teamwork mentality of it works a lot better. But I definitely need to learn more about humans, generally speaking.

Isabeau 16:11

Gotcha. No, that so it sounds like this training, this five-day training was just the uh the beginning. This is just oh, yeah.

Daria Williams 16:18

No, it's a continue. Yeah, no, there's so much more to do. Yes.

Isabeau 16:22

Oh boy, wow. All right. So uh, so what are your goals now that you finished the five-day course and you passed your uh your test? What is the uh next step?

Daria Williams 16:31

Well, the next step is to have beings at the carrier to see where I can assist to expand the program there and maybe do it more days. But because the problem is at the carrier, too, we don't have a covered arena or covered area, so it's weather plays a part of if we can have enough sessions, um availability of drivers. They always they always are short on mental health professionals, you know, lack of staff. Sometimes if the kids are in lockdown, so but they want to incorporate the program more. So if they have me added onto the team plus Marianne, we can expand it more at the carrier and come up with new ideas of how to make that happen and then start the program here at West End Farm in New Hope. But I still have to do, I need to get insurance and liability release forms. I've talked to like two mental health professionals that that can work with me, but I might have to find other ones. Um, but I have actually have three now. There are possibilities, and then you know, do all the advertising, marketing, website, Facebook page, you know, all those logistics. All that and find and find animals and find the animals, minor details.

Isabeau 17:49

Yes. Well, I mean, I imagine the animals wouldn't be too hard. There's always people looking animals, they're gonna be really easy.

Daria Williams 17:55

I've got plenty of people, the you know, return. But I also want to find animals that I want to work with too. Yeah, so I mean I can get a lot of free ones, but I want to be able to go meet them because I might have them for a lot of years, and I want to, since I do know horse personalities, I want to find ones that I've horses that I find intriguing. They're all have to be friendly and safe to a certain extent, but also that I'm gonna find intriguing to work with, you know, and it's gonna be a little tough because I'm not gonna be able to know them for that long, but yeah, but we innately kind of get a sense, like you know, yeah, some horses are not so interested in people, and some horses are very interested in people, and so you kind of need like a a middle of the road horse, gotcha, but a smarter, you know, I don't know. But the universal, I'm sure, will send me the right animals, and worse comes to worse, if they don't it can a lot of the professionals say, like, you'll know if the horses like to do the work, you know, or if they're even in the mood that day, you know, you could read them, so it'd be nice to have a mix of horses too, so you can change them out or eat I don't know, but um yeah, and and if some don't work, I could maybe re-home them and find new ones and yep, yep, gotcha.

Isabeau 19:10

Well, I'd imagine there's so many horses in that area at uh Hunterdon, New Jersey, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Uhlomeration of counties is so huge, you'd probably be able to follow it.

Daria Williams 19:20

And it also gives yeah, and it gives retired horses like a new purpose in life and then activity. And if they like it instead of just sitting in the field doing nothing, then they get attention and you know, something different, and you know, so that's kind of fun.

Isabeau 19:36

Yeah, no, some retired horses, especially in that area, retired show horses, they're used to a lot of activity, so they get people taking them out and doing stuff, and when people try to retire them, sometimes they don't do to do well. Yeah, no, they're not attention. They're they're they're used to attention. Cool.

Building Programs For Real Communities

Isabeau 19:53

So uh that carrier you work out that's uh what a residential mental health uh facility residential for uh teenage girls.

Daria Williams 20:02

So some girls live there long term, but there are there's acute adults that only they're sort of for a month. Okay. Um, there's so there's a couple different words. There's the elderly don't really come out, but there's also the Blake, the uh D tax rehab center. So those clients are, but they're adults, so they're just for 30 days as well. Um, so we work with them, we work with the residential girls, the short-term girls, the acute adults, which are short-term. And now they just built a new third. Well, they're putting 30 million dollars in the facility, and the new building just opened up like two weeks ago that's gonna start housing kids as the young of as uh as young as eight. So long-term residents. So that's we have to have a lot of meetings about that because changing from teenagers to eight-year-olds is a whole nother story. So I'm not really sure how that's gonna fall into place, but that'll be down the road. So we might have to start having eight, nine, ten, and eleven 12-year-olds at the barn.

Isabeau 21:05

Oh wow, that'll be exciting.

Daria Williams 21:09

Yes, that'll that'll be different. I mean, teenage girls are hard enough, but yes, eight, nine-year-olds, wait, and it's a mix of mental, it's behavioral problems, it's it's trauma, it's suicidal teenagers, it's um sex trafficking kids, it's a mix of every type of trauma, schizophrenic kids, uh uh uh borderline personality disorders. So when you're working with it's uh everything, it covers the entire gamut of mental health issues. Yeah.

Isabeau 21:43

Okay. Uh Emma said she has uh a question for you.

Daria Williams 21:47

Sure.

Isabeau 21:48

Emma, if you want to pop up, I'll uh I'll shut my uh video down. If you want to put your video on, Emma, we'll try to try to make it so we don't tax, tax the internet.

Emma Jenkinson 21:58

Balance it out. Yes. Um, my question was about the therapists that you work with. Do they have to be Egala certified to begin with, or do you lead them through that process and just find therapist if someone was wanting to open a program like that?

Daria Williams 22:17

They have to be e-gala certified. Yes. So they have to go through the training as well. And then you can also get dual certified. So say you're an e-corine specialist, but a lot of people that were at the training said that's very confusing because you're you're looking at the client at the both lenses. So they're like, well, but it helps if you're a mental health uh therapist, it is good to have horse knowledge that helps. But when you're in that team role, it's better to stay each in your own role instead of like overlapping. So yeah, I can see that. Yes, I can see where it helps either direction. But yeah, they have to get completely certified on their own. And then um, and then you can work together. Yep.

Emma Jenkinson 23:01

Cool. And so do you just like look on a directory to try to find some in your area?

Daria Williams 23:07

Yeah, they have on the egalit network, they have a really on the website, they have a good um networking page. You can look for people that are certified, locations already have programs set up. We also have networking phone calls that you can reach out to other people. Um, even have one in uh this Thursday that's for Delaware. So it's a kind of network in that direction through through the organization. They're very they are very organized, and they will help you do business plans, models, um, you know, even internationally. So you can get a lot of information from their website. Everyone's very helpful, they're all trying to make everybody succeed and work together. And um, I've already talked to a few people around here that um, well, the one mental health technician, she's not certified, but she's she's a horse person, so I'm sure she would want to do it, and she lives right around the corner. And then there's a girl, Sue, that used to live at my farm right above Isabow for seven years, and she was certified back in the day, but probably after like get re-certified. Um, but she's interested, and there's a woman that was at the training with me, she kind of wants to be part of the program. She lives a little bit more towards the shore, so yeah, it's kind of yeah, very

Money, Insurance, And Session Pricing

Daria Williams 24:27

cool.

Emma Jenkinson 24:27

And then how I mean, I'm sure it's unique for everybody who gets together to do this, but how do you guys split up the payment? Because there's like a therapist fee, and then there's like a fee for you as a fourth person.

Daria Williams 24:40

Right. So, what they're doing is if you come to someone's farm, the fee gets split three ways. So the mental health uh professional gets a third, the equine specialist gets a third, and then the barn gets a third. It looks like the going rate is between 250 to $300. Some people are doing it for an hour, some are doing 90 minutes. And then, but then it's different if you do groups. So the best way to do to raise more money is to do groups. Plus, you can also apply for a lot of grants. Um, the one uh the girl that I met that runs a program, it's called Gateways, the Malvern PA. She does a lot more grant work money to get some more influx, but she also works with two different prisons, an inner city school in Philadelphia. So you can angle the program yeah, in so many different directions. So the payments are, you know, you could do individual sessions or you could do corporate team building. Marianne, that carrier, she does a lot of work with sports teams now for team building. So yeah, it's kind of all over the place. But generally speaking, it looks like 250 to 300 if it's an individual session. And the insurance has to go through the mental health. That's why you need the mental health therapist there. Insurance will only cover percentage of it. So what you have to do is do like a pay tap, and then you kind of split it, the copay, or their mental health could get paid back from insurance, split the rest. So, yeah, it is a little complicated, but yeah, yeah.

Emma Jenkinson 26:11

It'll work to therapists in the past or and had other programs here who weren't doing Ingala, but they wanted to bring a therapist in for equine assisted therapy. And these were their questions, like how do we how do we split a fee? What's with the insurance? And and so maybe if anybody's looking for that, Igala would be a great resource for them, huh?

Daria Williams 26:32

Oh, 100%. Yeah, they'll help you with the business plan, they'll help you with liability release forms, and um, so that's what I'm gonna kind of work on this week. I have Mary Ann that I work, so I'm lucky, and I told her this the other day because a lot of people that go through this training, they're kind of off on their own. Um but I have a personal mentor that I see two days a week, and I can call her anytime.

Isabeau 26:54

That's that's gonna help me through a lot of it.

Daria Williams 26:57

Nice, yeah,

Why Experiential Therapy Matters

Daria Williams 26:59

yeah.

Isabeau 26:59

All right, uh, before we let you go, was there anything else you wanted to uh tell folks about the uh the program?

Daria Williams 27:06

Everybody I've talked to, it seems like it really is a needed therapy and a change because everyone's sick of sitting in an office, you know, they're sick of the same repetitive, you know, they they want people need to be outside and do um experiential therapy. And and marriage is like not enough of it. And and I'm just so surprised the response is even we had to do a practice where every person at the training had to be a client, and just seeing how much it touched these people. I mean, I don't know. I mean, people start breakdown crying because nobody gives themselves enough time to just like sit back and do self-care and kind of and you know, just take a breath and rethink what's all going through our crazy brains because everybody is so busy, and um you know, and kids nowadays they don't get outside, they're stuck on screens and they're stuck in the house. So there's one guy that might do a curriculum with screen addicts, and so there just seems to be such a need for it, and I think the community around here is really gonna accept it, and so I'm just kind of really excited to see where it goes.

Isabeau 28:15

All right, I will let you go then. Emma, was there anything else you wanted to say before we uh go?

Emma Jenkinson 28:21

No, thanks for for involving me. Oh, okay. Nice to meet you, Emma.

Isabeau 28:27

I'm sorry, I didn't meet you. I should have said I said Emma, I kept thinking I should tell Emma I'm gonna talk to Daria, and then five minutes beforehand, I sent her notification. Oh, I'm gonna talk to Daria in five minutes so that she was able to catch me.

Daria Williams 28:44

That's good.

Isabeau 28:46

All right, cool. Thanks for meeting up to uh chat with me, ladies.