Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
Here on Equine Assisted World.
We look at the cutting edge and the best practices currently being developed and,
established in the equine assisted field.
This can be psychological, this can be neuropsych, this can be
physical, this can be all of the conditions that human beings have.
These lovely equines, these beautiful horses that we work with, help us with.
Thank you for being part of the adventure and we hope you enjoy today's show
Welcome back to Equine Assisted World where we look at people
who are at the cutting edge of this rapidly expanding field.
Today, I've got someone exciting.
We know we always have someone exciting.
So this person's no less exciting.
She's actually extremely exciting.
Her name is Nina Ekholm Frey.
Some of you will already know her from the work she's done
at the University of Colorado.
Rather pioneering work she can let her tell us about.
Some of you may also know her from the organization Hetty.
And if you don't know what Hetty is, you will after this podcast.
And but she has a much more interesting background than just equine assisted work
and the study of it and human and animal communication, connectivity relationship.
So without further ado welcome on, Nina.
And who are you exactly?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Hi there.
Super great to be here.
Who am I?
I'm Swedish speaking Finn who's known you, Rupert, for quite some time.
Thank you.
That's that's where I wanna start.
But as you said, some folks may be familiar, maybe not.
I work at University of Denver here in Colorado in the US of a, but,
again, I'm from Europe originally.
And at University of Denver, we have an institute for human animal
connection where we do research as well as professional development when
it comes to people's interests in in interactions with all kinds of animals.
But I work a lot with horses.
And that's also, of course, how me and and Rupert and everyone over at Horse
Boy 2 how we got to know each other.
So I think I'll I'll I'll kind of start there with my
Rupert Isaacson: with my Well, let's let's just rewind a little bit.
Of course, yes.
You and I are old mates.
However, most people listening are not familiar with that crucial
piece of background that you gave, a Swedish speaking Finn.
Tell us about that.
Tell us about that culture and how that culture has maybe
informed your career path.
Is is it something very specific within Europe?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
So, yeah, Swedish speaking Finns or if we're using a Swedish speaking
Finn word mean it simply means that in Finland, we have 2 official languages,
and there's a minority, a language and ethnic minority who lives in Finland who
speak Swedish as their first language and also have sort of a specific
cultural identity as part of Finland.
And it's it's a very good question you ask about how it's influenced me or kind
of impacted me because when you grow up obviously, I'm a or I shouldn't say
obviously, but I am a black white person.
I'm a white woman from Northern Europe, and the Swedish speaking
Finns are predominantly white.
But there's still a minority within Finland, a white minority.
And so growing up in a minority status, But I grew up in a what's called
a majority minority area, simply meaning that in my village and in my
county, we were predominantly Finland Svenskaar or Swedish speaking Finns.
So my immediate experience and my village was about, you know, 200 people or so.
My immediate experience was really connected to my
ethnic and language identity.
But the but the larger sort of area of I'm from the West Coast of Finland, It
was a it was a particular experience to start noticing things like identities and
power and and differences like that even early on, even before venturing out into
Europe, before venturing out into the rest of the world and other continents, and
then eventually ending up here in the US.
Rupert Isaacson: So, um, this minority experience I know from your previous
to being an academic life, led you into some interesting human rights work.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
I mean, I I think in some ways, it is a human rights work to become
a mental health practitioner, to become a psychologist, to become
interested in in the human mind.
And so I wouldn't say other than my my overall experience of understanding
power and privilege in a much deeper way than I did initially when I grew up.
I didn't have parents or context where people were quite
aware of equity and inequity.
But I started seeing it, and I saw it actually very early on in my
village when a Finnish Roma family wanted to visit 1 of the stables,
but they weren't truly welcome.
But because of my status in the village and because of my whiteness and
because of my knowing this very small village, I was able to escort them.
I was able to assume or use, wield, you know, my privilege to help them access,
you know, what they were interested in visiting horses because horses are part
of of of the Finnish Roma culture as well.
So those were some early things, you know, around around my interest in in in, yeah,
areas of privilege and power and equity, which after moving to the US became quite
a quite a lived experience, you know, as an immigrant, as a as a woman and very fem
presenting woman living in a in a whole new place, in a more multicultural place
than the fairly monocultural homogeneous experience I had growing up, but being
a minority population, but still.
So I think some of my interest later on as well in thinking of
just horses and humans and working now in a school of social work.
The these things have really informed me in speaking more on or being more
interested in things like power.
Rupert Isaacson: So before you came over to the USA you pursued, obviously,
your early career there in Finland.
What did you do between leaving school?
Obviously, you're a horsey girl.
You're living in this very beautiful, very nature rich part of the world.
But then what what do you do where where do you go for your working life?
Do you go to the city?
What happens?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
So I started actually at the very end of my degree.
Again, I'm a psychologist working for the Red Cross.
So I worked for it's called the Western District Red Cross.
So not as a volunteer, but as a but as a staff member and engaged mostly in
crisis work within the country of Finland.
So this wasn't international international crisis work.
We did we did have 2 unfortunate school shootings, which is very, very
unusual for Finland, but both happened during my tenure with the Red Cross.
1 of them in our neighboring district, which meant that we went there.
Our our staff went there.
So I worked for the Red Cross for a while.
They're overlapping kind of toward my graduation.
I also worked for a couple of organizations for mental health, so
related to mental health in general, but I also work for organizations specific
to folks who are autistic and folks with ADHD, which started kind of, another
connection point that we have here Rupert.
But but those were some of my early sort of mental health related work.
And then eventually, I ended up back at my alma mater, the old
university where I had graduated from.
So it was there that I was working still pretty early career in my twenties when
all of a sudden, there was a a note or I can't did I get an email about this?
Some somehow somebody said, hey.
They're looking for a faculty member, an associate professor position in America
in at Prescott College in Arizona.
You know, applying for that even though I quite liked the the
position I had at my old university.
But that really started that's when things really started rolling, let's say.
Rupert Isaacson: So you you applied for this job sort of out of the blue partly
from a sense of adventure, I I presume.
You get the job.
That seems, by itself somewhat of a tall order.
There must have been, you know, loads of people applying for that job.
Yet you get it.
And you come to America fresh off the boat, land in the desert.
What do you come there to do at the University of Prescott?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
So and the the position itself, the reason why I sought it was, again, not because
I was unhappy where I was necessarily, but because at the time, this is sadly
not the case any longer, but at the time, Prescott College was well, it
was I mean, I guess it's still known as this, but it was known as having some
early, at least experiential learning things with horses kind of Right.
An innovative in institution that was born out of some sort of Harvard
Business School experiment about the school of the future, and and they
were again, founded in the sixties, so not a very old institution.
But the reason why I applied for that job was because they were asking
for somebody to come and develop a concentration for the masters of
counseling students in in the inclusion of horses in mental health, so that the
the counseling students who are getting their masters and to become licensed
mental health counselors would then be able to study or add this concentration.
They already had art therapy and So that's really what I what I applied for.
That's that's what took me away, so to speak, from from where I was working at
the time, and I had I had traveled, and I had lived in a couple of different
places also earlier on, but but that's what I came to do to to to formalize
some of the activities in the past few years there at Prescott College.
Yeah.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: And then you arrive not knowing much about the USA except just
looking at it from the outside, and you dive right into the college system there.
And and, also, Prescott is an interesting town because it's
there in the Arizona desert.
It's those of you who who know it, it's north of it's of Phoenix,
between Phoenix and Flagstaff.
It's sort of as you begin to go up towards the higher country, and
it seems to be sort of equal parts liberal college town, a little bit
like, say, Boulder or somewhere, and equal parts Redneck Arizona.
And that must have been quite a cultural jump.
How did you find it?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Certainly was.
And I had spent time in the US prior, but only as a visitor.
You know?
So you can only get so much of a sense of a place.
And I had been to the southwest, you know, the similar landscape.
But something about the desert, which is the opposite, you could say, opposite
climate of Finland in so many ways.
Finland's, you know, north and humid, and we're talking desert here.
It burned into my soul, the desert landscape, into my mind
and soul in a very profound way.
I just because I my my feeling was very much I have left this position
that I had in Finland, which wasn't you know, I did do pros and cons lists,
but it wasn't, you know, the most terrifying thing necessarily I had done.
It was like, okay.
Well, if you are hiring me for this job, then I surely will come kind of thing.
But but when I so when I arrived, I knew I sort of had told myself, look.
You're gonna like this place.
And I had I had visited 1 time after being accepted or accepted
after being employed, offered a contract, and while I was waiting for
immigration status to be resolved.
So I had visited before once before I actually moved there.
Physically, those 2 suitcases showed up there.
But and I knew I told myself, look.
You're gonna like it, you know, because this is where this kinda
cool job is, and and you know, why why wouldn't you like it?
And I just arrived into this small town.
Yes.
It's north of Phoenix.
It's pretty small community.
It's pretty eclectic.
Mhmm.
It's specific.
It has a very almost insular culture to it due to the way that the mountains
rise because it's a mile high city.
So you're gonna drive up from Phoenix, you rise about 3000 feet, and you
end up in this little it's not a mountain town, but it's high desert.
Yeah.
And it feels very place based.
It feels very contained.
It was not it was completely different, of course, than my village
and the city I grew up near, but it was also not an urban metropolis.
Right.
It had very strong land connection.
That's how I felt when I arrived, and I felt at
Rupert Isaacson: home.
And then what did you you you then began to move towards the work that you're doing
now while you were there at Prescott.
You began to organize very interesting events in congresses there.
Can you just tell us about the work that you did there, and then that'll
be give us a way to jump into the work you're doing now at Denver?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
Yes.
So, again, I arrived with a task to sort of solidify what had happened there.
And I, of course, also arrived with quest to know what is
happening here in the States.
I mean, at that time, yes, there were emails and slow Internet browsers, but
it wasn't like now where you could just get people on the on the phone, you
know, or or chat or message with people.
I had some contacts, but my main quest was literally to see what is
going on here when they were talking about horses, and we're talking about
therapy and especially psychotherapy.
So my my early years, I was there for 5 years, were really,
really focused on networking.
We're really focused on bringing people together.
As you mentioned, I organized some large large events and, of course, running the
the concentration within the master's program there for students bringing in
speakers, and and, you know, I've had you there too for some of our both our
undergrad and our graduate students.
So I spent several years basically trying to get to know as many people
as possible and as much about the context of the United States and equine
interactions and therapies since I had some of that coming from from Europe.
But here, we had a completely new landscape.
And I could also add, I also spent some earnest time trying to understand what
these, you know, natural horsemanship dudes in the west were talking about.
I had some experience, you know, of course, being classically trained,
classical equitation in Europe.
But I I gave it a really good shot when they were running horses around and around
pens, and they were doing stuff like that.
And I earnestly was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to understand what you
all are talking about, but really found that that a lot of it wasn't
science aligned or it wasn't for me.
So I did spend a lot of time in the sort of on the horse side only as well.
Rupert Isaacson: And what had you been involved in the equine assisted
work in Finland before you came Yes.
To the US.
Okay.
Tell us about that and and and, yeah, you're the background
Nina Ekholm Fry: there.
Yeah.
Both practically as in providing services and including horses, but
also toward the end of my time there.
Again, again, I was then by then into my mid twenties, I had started
to become nationally involved.
So I was a vice president of 1 of the national organizations there, and we
were working on sort of a couple of initiatives meaning that I've started
to do some of the work that I am doing quite a bit now too, which is not only,
you know, boots on the ground kind of experiences or practical experiences,
but also trying to, uh, positively influence things like guidelines or
or larger systems where possible.
Rupert Isaacson: So the the work you did when you were providing services
in Finland, was that sort of classic therapeutic riding or adaptive riding?
Was that more the equine assisted psychotherapy direction?
What how are you doing it?
What was the what was the menu you were offering
Nina Ekholm Fry: there?
Yeah.
Not really adaptive riding.
I actually became an adaptive riding instructor after I came to the US which
I, you know, made sure I kind of got to understand what they're doing there.
I was familiar with that area.
It's called something else in in Finland, but no the inclusion
of horses in human services.
So, both, you know, psychotherapy services and also what we call more supportive
services was what I was doing there.
So with autistic kids, so families with autistic family members, more so
what we'd call supportive services.
It's a little more like what I've also had the opportunity to work with you
and New Trails about more that kind of thing, but also and separate from that
with other clientele, you know, use of psychotherapy as the treatment and
then the including of the horse Right.
In each path process.
So so it's a little bit of of of, again, more learning, more supportive
service as well as health care service.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: And then you arrive, obviously, in this
academic role in Prescott.
Do you start also offering services there?
And, also, you say you you start getting to know as many
people in the field as you can.
What are the main differences that you found between the approaches the
Equinixis approaches in Europe to yeah.
What struck you?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
And and and this is a topic that that you and I also know quite a bit about.
When you come to a new country as an immigrant, takes a while for
you to get certain permissions to do certain kinds of work.
So, yes, when I first arrived, I I didn't have the status to allow me
to do multiple to, you know, work for multiple employers, basically,
or to even have my own business yet.
Right.
That took several years before I was able to.
And when I was able to, I was then able to provide psychotherapy primarily in
the residential treatment settings where clients would come for typically longer
term treatment primarily co occurring trauma and addiction or co occurring
trauma and there, also in in Arizona.
But much later on there also in in Arizona, but much later on
than those initial years due to due to immigration restrictions.
But the, yes, the differences were in terms of you're asking the differences
between, you know, how the inclusion of horses would look in Europe at
that time, which has also changed, you know, a a bunch compared to the states.
I mean, I knew or I was aware already while living in Europe that there were a
lot of these so called models and brands.
So very American, you know, ideas of of like, oh, I'm gonna brand this and
call this something very specific.
So I was aware that that was what was happening there.
And a lot of actually folks in Europe were looking more to the US
specifically around psychotherapy.
You know, the use of equine movement in physical therapy and occupational therapy,
speech therapy really originated in the German speaking parts of of of Europe,
and that felt very solid as a and also, you know, Finland was an early, early
also forerunner with the first training in 19 89 mostly focused on, again,
physical therapists and what's called ergotherapists or occupational therapists.
But the psychotherapy work, surely there was there or there was definitely
some early stuff happening in the eighties and nineties in in the
German speaking countries with the inclusion of horses in psychiatry and
inclusion of horses in psychotherapy.
But there was definitely the sense that the Americans are doing a lot in this.
Like, the Americans are really pushing forward.
So that was, of course, something I was particularly interested in, and it
was very much more when I was working in in Northern Europe, very much more
common that a person was a physical therapist, for instance, instead of
the few psychotherapists around who included horses or or even dogs and
other animals in their in in their work.
So coming to the states, it also was a matter of of just very I took a very
empirical approach to to starting to see, okay, what what are you all doing
here, and what can I get trained in?
And I got trained in basically most things that were available at that time and
really committed to understanding what the thing was and then, you know, sometimes
arriving to this is not for me or this you know, after getting familiar with a
number of things that were was going on, you know, in the US and really dedicating
myself to understanding at first.
I did notice that there was quite a quite a few things that weren't
for me or didn't seem aligned with health care, specifically health
care in the way we might talk about, you know, in health insurance
billable service or using a term like psychotherapy to talk about treatment.
Yeah.
So I I made sure I got real familiar at first and also
kept my relationships you know?
There's a few people who are doing who who are running programs, and and Yeah.
We're all have similar interests.
So we're all, you know, colleagues.
Some really close friends too for sure.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
What what what of the methods that you got trained in did
you find really spoke to you?
Nina Ekholm Fry: You know, I hate to be so biased here, but I ran into
somebody named Rupert, and he was talking about some horse boy stuff.
And I I just met him.
Yeah.
. But, honestly, that was learning about so both, of course, the
inclusion of horses in the horse boy , you know, new trail system here.
But, really, the the fundamentally right approach or appropriate approach
to autism as a neurotype was honestly what really really got me because we
weren't talking about horse's stuff.
Instead, this my experiences is was we're centering an autistic experience.
We're centering understanding each other as humans here.
Right.
Now we're thinking how do we include horses into that?
And that was very attractive, you know, to me.
And that was the way that I was thinking about things already.
Mhmm.
And and and so some of my, again, in my early empirical investigation,
spent a lot of time also going back and forth to Texas and and learning at
that time and and and learning more.
And that's really what what what what got me, what I thought
this this makes sense to me.
Rupert Isaacson: You're you're extremely kind.
And, obviously, with Horse Boy , we we we try our best to keep it an
ever ever developing organism.
We still, obviously, as you know, go for regular continuing education, really
mentorship from neuroscientists and and indeed from autist autists themselves.
Apart from horse boy method, did you find some other methods here in the US
that really spoke to you and said yes, particularly on the psychotherapy end?
Was there were there some things that really stood out?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
I think with, honestly, the other trainings, which I either then I took
and became credentialed or I even hosted workshops, it didn't seem like
they were using the same conceptual frame that was still sort of in
infancy in my mind that I've later, you know, sort of really helped bring
forth in my own work and and in Right.
Kind of medical national context when the time was right for more clarifications
around terminology and concepts and things like that just a few years ago here.
But I didn't find that the really a kind of singular other approach that
sort of was so clearly anchored in the understanding of, in this case, a
particular population, not to say that this this your work is inherently tied
just to 1 kind of person or something like that because it has so many aspects
to it that are useful for developing minds and people and that kind of thing.
So it wasn't I I I think it was more like, oh, this approach is an another approach.
You take parts from that or this other approach was really leaning
into like, working with teams and business executives, things like that.
And and I was like, oh, yeah.
I've done a lot of this experiential learning stuff in the forest of
Finland here that I can recognize some of these, you know, the the
same learning ideas, of course, the same experiential learning theory.
And that makes sense too.
But they felt more like these are very specific specifically directed things,
and they weren't necessarily separating the equine interaction from Right.
It's provided.
And I think for me, that was always really important or how I, again, a
little later started really more clearly conceptualizing this in my own work.
Rupert Isaacson: So now let's go to to the work you're doing now.
You you you've come out of the University of you spent 5 years there.
You've gotten to know the equine assisted scene.
You've you've, as you say, you've you've explored horse boy.
You've explored some other methodologies.
You've taken ideas from a number of places.
Your background, though, still remains, you know, within the psychotherapy end.
But yet then you end up at Denver University, and you end up at a really I
would say, it still is, and it certainly was then, but it's it's remained, I
think, the really cutting edge program, I think, within the USA on exploring what's
the value of human animal connection.
So how did you end up at Denver?
What was on your mind to go there to do?
And tell us about the work you've developed since you got there.
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
Yeah.
So I I had did not necessarily have a a a clear plan of leaving this this very
compelling desert community in Arizona.
I quite you know, by then, I'd gotten myself some a better immigration status.
I had my horses who who are, you know, some of which are who are
still alive, and they live now here in 1 state over in Colorado.
No.
It was it's actually a a colleague of mine who so graciously said, hey.
I'd like you to come work at University of Denver.
I'd like you to come to the Institute for Human Animal Connection.
I'd like you to lead our equine efforts because the institute had been in existent
existence for years, but it's sort of just been 1 faculty member and then
initially a part time staff position.
It had been kinda small.
And right around that time, 20 14, 20 15, there was a concerted effort
to actually build the institute up.
And there was several of us, including the then director of research who's now
the current executive director of the institute and myself and, again, some
other folks started at the same time.
It was very exciting time because it was possible to not only build on existing
work that had been going on at a smaller scale at the institute, but now really
take both the research side as well as the professional development or the sort of
education side of that institute forward.
So I got also had the opportunity to shape my role a little bit and wanted
to make sure that it included both therapeutic human animal interactions
as well as the experiences of horses in communities, meaning things like
equine behavior, equine welfare, but really anchored in more of a social
science lens as opposed to a veterinary medicine lens or or or things like
Rupert Isaacson: that.
So when people think about you know, a university beginning to put its attention
on this kind of thing which I think for a lot of people is still a surprise.
I think I think a lot of people, even in our field, are still perhaps unaware
that you have your institute at Denver University, and now there's other academic
institutions beginning to follow suit.
I think a lot of us spent so long sort of out in the wilderness that we we
it it it comes as a bit of a shock to us to think, oh, universities are
actually interested in what we do.
But there you are, of course, beginning to to run these well well, it's it's
for you to tell us what you were doing.
We we always picture, we layman, we non academics, what
do they do at universities.
They either teach or they run research.
Right?
What I presume you be with the institute began doing both.
Tell us about the research and tell us about the t the vocational end.
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
Yes.
So at University of Denver, I'm a a faculty member in the
Graduate School of Social Work.
This is also where the institute sits.
Even though, again I'm not a a social worker by training, this
is typically a US profession.
You know?
When we talk about social work, this this this social work in Europe has
different flavors, let's say, depending on the country, and it's a different
kind of it's a different professional area than the core, what's known as
the kind of US social work profession.
I emphasize this again because you know, our executive director is a
molecular biologist by training who
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us who who is your executive
Nina Ekholm Fry: director?
Doctor Kevin Morris is his name who you've who you've also met at times.
Yeah.
We've
Rupert Isaacson: had He he's an intriguing intriguing figure.
Perhaps a little bit further on, you'll give us a bit of background
on him because I think I think that would be useful for our our listeners.
But okay.
So you you you I you're there.
You're beginning to run studies?
You're beginning to research
Nina Ekholm Fry: the field?
Yes.
So so, again, at the at the institute, we have a a a research side to it,
so to speak, where we can process and manage grants and research processes.
And we also do professional development and education and sort of, like,
implementation science, basically.
Like like, it's not just research because research tends to occur in quite
narrow areas depending on its funding.
But so our institute, I feel, is very unique also in that we we bring
research to practice or we we spread the word about what's happening.
So my roles currently on the on the faculty side within the graduate school I
lead an area of social work study, which is also very unique called human animal
environment interactions in social work.
And the fact that we've taught these courses about the importance and
impact of human animal interactions at University of Denver since 19 96.
There was 1 little course, and now, you know, it it's really been DU or University
of Denver has been a forerunner thanks to people like Philip Tedeschi and others who
really said, I wanna teach about humans and animals with a social work lens.
And now I'm in the position where I'm, again, overseeing this year
specialization for people to formally study this in social work but to
understand the importance and impact of these relationships also in clinical
work, but also in a number of settings like, you know, pet ownerships,
companion animals other health benefits of just being connected to nature.
That's been a really a gift for University of Denver to be also supporting other
social work schools in in really daring to talk loudly about, you know,
human animal environment interactions.
So that's part of my work.
And then my other part is at the institute, which I can talk more about
too, but I wanted to sort of highlight the the unique academic content that's
also happening that more and more institutions are starting to dare have
courses on human animal interactions.
Rupert Isaacson: And so if you're doing that at a social a school of
social work, does that mean that these are student social workers?
And, basically, what they're being taught is the value of doing the work they're
gonna do professionally with, say, therapy dogs, therapy horses, or outside in nature
to get a better outcome for their clients and encouraging them to go animal based,
nature based in their own practices.
Is is is that sort of
Nina Ekholm Fry: the idea?
Yes.
Part of it.
Because not every social work student so they are social work students.
I also teach in the graduate school of professional psychology.
So I teach some of the doctoral students about interventions that
include animal interactions, and that's more squarely clinical.
Yeah.
The social work students, the majority of them honestly are clinically
focused, and that's pretty typical.
You know, we have a clinical license for social workers, etcetera.
But social workers also work on policy levels.
They also work in what we call meso areas, meaning they might not
work directly with 1 to 1 service.
They might prefer to work with systems instead.
They might prefer to work with policies or promote I see.
The understanding, yeah, of, again, the impact and importance
of these relationships.
If you're seeking a safe place to be because of intimate partner violence,
you're not gonna go to that shelter if it means you have to leave your
dog behind in your house or give them up for adoption, a family member.
You can choose between being not beaten up every day or leave
your dog there to be beaten up.
That's not a choice that people, you know, make.
And but but others may not understand this.
Mhmm.
Others may say, oh, of course, you're gonna dump the dog.
Right?
Humans.
Humans first.
But that's not how the human species works necessarily with the importance importance
of our interspecies connections.
And that's really how we live, you know, and have been living.
So it's it's understanding those kinds of things.
Oh, why why are we seeing people who are killed by their intimate partners?
Well, they might have barriers to seeking safety.
Well, 1 of them might be that we're not understanding the importance
and impact of their animal relationships completely or fully.
So those are that's 1 of a a ton of examples that relate to, again,
these these human animal environment interactions also outside of
clinical work, but very much so also including animals in nature into
the therapy process like you said.
And
Rupert Isaacson: would you hope that some of these students that then go
on to have careers in, as you say, in the systems, in the admin, end up
working in local health authorities or or even national health authorities.
And then 1 would hope that what they've learned and what they've been taught
and as a knock on effect that as they become policymakers, they include animal
assisted stuff in government funded or insurance company funded treatments.
So looking into
Yes.
Nina Ekholm Fry: And yeah.
And it's really also understanding.
Right?
Like, currently, you you can include interactions with dogs and cats, horses,
guinea pigs, rats in psychotherapy without restriction and getting reimbursed.
Okay.
You can't do you can't do things like animal therapy or dog therapy
or horse therapy because that's not a therapy in the health care system.
Enhance that.
And that's a billable service because the animal does not constitute treatment or a
modality or a strategy or an intervention.
And this is something that then, you know, these graduate students who
are really advanced learners in this area, you know, gain knowledge about.
And then just like you said, some of them may be working clinically,
but others may work in systems.
And they may be setting policies for the schools, which happens quite a lot, the
school district, to promote more animal and nature access in public schools, for
Rupert Isaacson: instance.
Okay.
So you're really paying it forward.
I mean, you're what you're doing there at DU is really training up the next
generation of policymakers to place value on nature and animals at the
institutional slash school slash billable clinical level, and that maybe we might
be looking at a better picture of that in 15 years because these people have
now gone on to somewhat senior positions having gone through your program.
That's great.
Yeah.
Nina Ekholm Fry: And and in many ways, all all education and training, we also
have our postmasters training program, which is not tied to an academic degree.
It's a postmasters training, meaning you have a master's or doctoral
already and you you're you're taught to to include interactions
with horses into psychotherapy.
That's 1 of our professional development offerings.
But I think that any any of these trainings, right, that we anytime
we educate, it is a pay it forward because it is sort of helping others
gain the knowledge and apply it.
But you're right that we we do we might really do have a very specific sort of
intention as well around social good and social justice where we really
emphasize that people who are graduating, whether from master's and and and
and teach others, go forth and and learn learn more together with others.
This is not a question of competitions or who who has the
best, you know, training program.
It's it's really about the recognition, like you said, or the importance of
human animal interactions in a variety of
Rupert Isaacson: ways.
Are you looking are you seeing now other universities following
suit from what DU has pioneered?
Are are you seeing similar types of programs springing up across the
Nina Ekholm Fry: US now?
Yeah.
I mean, I I spend a fair bit of time chatting with, consulting with,
you know, with colleagues in in various especially in social work,
in various social work schools.
But I also you know, me and my actually former grad student, we
just had another paper come out just last week, in fact, that maps the
academic coursework that includes equine interactions in human services.
Meaning, any courses that are at universities and colleges
that teach either things like adaptive or therapeutic writing.
That's the same thing.
You know?
That's more of a writing school course industry activity.
But there's quite a lot of undergraduate institutions that have coursework
specific that students can take, especially within equine, you
know, science or equine studies.
And it includes things like learning services, so education, that kind of thing
where people teach a course how to include the horse and, of course, in therapy,
whether that's psychotherapy whether that's occupational or physical or speech
therapy, and also which institutions have survey or overview courses.
So we just the this study just came out, like I said, last week, mapping
the this, and we did a comparison because we did a replication of our
study that came out 5 years ago.
And we saw an increase in courses, an increase in institutions offering
these coursework institute you know, increase in departments.
So there's definitely, not just in my own personal kind of perception, but
also, you know, using data and increase in interest in academic institutions
when it comes to these things.
This is the way of the
Rupert Isaacson: future.
Well, that's wonderful because, I mean, that can only mean that, yeah,
professionals of the future are gonna come out of these programs.
And as you say, that's that's got to be a tide that will
lift all boats a much needed 1.
You you are now also working outside of DU.
I know that you've got you know, you you you are very influential
and active in the sort of wider world of equine assisted stuff.
You're sitting on boards.
You're you're helping to get the field sort of moving forward and evolving.
Which which boards and so on are you currently sitting on, and which
organizations are you would you like us to know about that are doing work that
you feel we should all be aware of?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
Yes.
So currently I sit on the American Hippotherapy Association board.
This is an organization that supports licensed physical therapists,
occupational therapists, and speech language pathologists in the use of
equine movement as a therapy tool.
And not the horse, but the equine movement in health care in the
US on in these professions is described as a therapy tool, the
movement that the horse provides.
So I sit on this board.
This is actually my sixth and final year.
I've I've served on this board for quite a while, sometimes as the only mental health
professional amongst my colleagues and it's been a a really rewarding experience.
I also currently, I'm trying to think of larger larger things.
I sit on an advisory board for the state of Massachusetts that I'm really
excited about because it's about promoting green care, and it's about
allocating funds to providers in the state who are serving adolescents and
young adults who have some sort of connection to substance use challenges.
But it's finding ways of engaging people with green arenas or green
spaces in in in their service provision, which is typically psychotherapy,
but there's also other ways that these this population can be served
under these state monies that exist.
So the advisory board role is to allocate the money and also to advise,
you know, the the the recipients of the money the grantees in that state.
So those are a couple of of larger things that happened to not be specifically
about equine interaction, but I also, you know, work with other other
contexts or other other things as well.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, I think you made a very good point earlier, which
is that the interaction with horses and animals in general is part of
the general interaction with nature.
Yes.
1 1 1 can't you know, 1 tends the nature tends to get used to mean interactions
with natural landscapes as something rather separate from animals, but I'm a
great believer that it's all the same.
And to separate 1 from the other is asinine but it's
understandable why people do it.
So it it's exciting to me that you are making a point of drawing that
connection on on on an academic and an organizational level.
What what draws you to what drew you to the Hippotherapy
Association in particular?
What was what is it about that that approach that speaks to you?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
I would and I also wanna make sure I I mentioned a couple of organizations
that I think there's been some really exciting or interesting stuff happening
with human horse interactions.
But, yeah, the American Hippotherapy Association or Again, the word
hypotherapist is a little tricky.
You can just say equine movement.
It means the same thing.
But I was originally asked to join that board because of my
work on the mental health side.
Yeah.
So this organization has been a long standing organization,
very typically organized, you know, for licensed providers.
So I I've just enjoyed the exchange with my colleagues since I'd at at the time,
I was still serving as the, I think, the the chair of a credentialing board
called the CBEIP or the certification board for equine interaction
professionals, which credential mental health professionals voluntarily.
You know, this is a voluntary national thing.
Mental health professionals as well as learning professionals.
And I think it was through that connection as well because there's a separate
credentialing board, similar 1 for OTs and PTs, occupational and physical therapists.
So I think it was I was asked to join or or, you know, to talk more.
What's happening on the mental health side?
What's what's going on there?
Because Mhmm.
Unfortunately, there's not there's not a singular organization similar to that
exists for those who provide psychotherapy and who are licensed or licensable,
which is a very specific way of looking at, you know, therapy and treatment.
Yeah.
So that's how I that's how I ended up there, and it's been 6 6
short years in a major pandemic.
And I know it's been it's been a lovely, lovely time, and it's really also made
me really connected to my colleagues who have different professions than me
but are still health care providers.
So
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Okay.
But I want Yeah.
So you mentioned that you wanted to draw our attention to a couple of other things.
Okay?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
Since you since you mentioned this, you mentioned in the very beginning
HETI, horses in education therapy international, and I'd just a couple of
years ago finished tenure as a journal editor for them that I was for 10 years.
And so they've been a and I'm, you know, still connected to them.
They're sort of the international horse specific organization for for,
again, horses in therapy and education.
A similar organization, but for sort of all human animal interactions is called
I Ohio, the International Association for Human Animal Interaction Organizations.
And IOHIO is I've been connected with them for years too, but I wanted to highlight
that there was a really good equine wealth fair and training and handling guidelines
that came out of I Ohio and are freely available you know, for people to to find.
I had a pleasure to be part of it, the international work group that
created those guidelines and a couple of other things related to horses.
But I think if I look back at the last few years of, you know, doing this kind
of especially international work, which is very difficult to do because we are
now talking about different countries, different cultures, different ways of
thinking that don't have to be the same.
You know?
But those equine guidelines, I'm really, really proud of them how they turned
out and, you know, the group that came together and their contribution
overall when we think about horses in, you know, various human services
including adapt you know, and think about adaptive or therapeutic riding,
these guidelines were meant to be applicable for all these various areas.
And I and I and I thought that that was such neat work.
So I wanted to highlight that as as, you know, another reason for that.
Rupert Isaacson: Specific about those guidelines.
What so tell us about them in a bit more detail.
What do they say?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
So they their guidelines for there's sort of 2 areas called care and welfare, and
the other area is training and handling.
Okay.
And what I really appreciated about I Ohio's approach specifically is that
there's quite a lot of these welfare guidelines or ethics guidelines.
They can be quite aspirational.
They can be quite thin.
There might be a couple of sentences, you know, do no harm and, you know,
let's be good to horses or something like that, but they don't necessarily
provide more detailed guidance.
It just depends on how a problem is can conceptualize.
Sometimes we want more bigger principles.
Right?
But this the the organization supported the direction of our work group to take
a braver stance to be clearer and more detailed, which is, again, difficult
internationally about that we, yeah, that we need to use science based
approaches of understanding horses.
We need to think further than our own nose, as we say in Swedish, meaning, you
know, sometimes if we stop thinking, we haven't gotten very far, barely off of our
own face here and not even thinking about the welfare of horses, another species.
So the the guidelines are quite they're detailed.
They're clear in their recognition of horses as also vulnerable
participants in these services, and they give, you know, clear guidance.
Look.
Horses need to have fiber.
They need to be with other horses.
They can't just stand inside in extreme confinement all day,
and we just call that good.
Yeah.
So those are some of the the the the spirit of the guidelines
really push things forward.
And I even have been asked to give a talk at a at a conference.
I gave this was it last year?
No.
Still this year.
Even about the development of the guidelines because it was
so unusual to be able to move.
Maybe they're a couple of steps ahead, but I don't mind.
You know?
We'll catch up.
You
Rupert Isaacson: know?
Do you have you found that those guidelines have been
instituted and followed?
Have you been able to trace that in certain areas?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
I mean, not formally because there's not a mechanism to say, like, okay.
This country does this.
But I've had colleagues translate them into different languages, and
some have asked me to eye through them to see if they retain, you
know, their original thought.
But, again, English is my third language, so just we're all just trying here.
And I've definitely had people contact me to ask a clarifying
question or, you know, like, they're they're not just sitting somewhere.
So
Rupert Isaacson: people appear to be reacting to them.
Yeah.
Because, yeah, I I as you know, we we work internationally with horse sport.
And when I'm going into new countries, sometimes it's like,
it's gonna be tricky here.
Yeah.
The level of horse care is not what we'd wanna see.
Yeah.
And then the question is always, but could it get there?
And, you know, if you're if you're 1 organization working alone, the
answer is, well, maybe, but it it would be down to an individual
stable deciding to up up its game.
But I what I really like about what you're doing with I Ohio is it
encourages a bit more of a systematic and institutional change and perhaps
some of the equine assisted national bodies also beginning to look at this
more and have that trickle down effect.
Because it's true that, you know, when we're in the US or when we're in
Europe, we often, to some degree, take for granted the good horse welfare.
But even there, we can get some nasty surprises sometimes.
But, yeah when you go outside, it it it's anybody's guess.
You know, it it it's that thing of of particularly when 1 goes to countries
where the horse is not necessarily part of the traditional culture.
That it's something that may have been brought in.
So with with the work that you're doing academically, let's bring
it back to the university at DU, where are you hoping to take it?
What's your what's your ambition?
What are you what what are your plans?
Yeah.
I
Nina Ekholm Fry: mean, I feel so fortunate that I'm I'm where I
wanna be in terms of the space to do the work that's of interest to
me the ability to just think, okay.
What what do I wanna do?
Do we wanna do more big events?
Is that really where we wanna, you know, sit?
Does another organization do that better or as well?
And this is what we've found, for instance, in our collaboration with
Green Chimneys in New York and that we're we're now, you know, collaborating
on big practitioner conference events.
Mhmm.
And, you know, so for me, my the trajectory right now in the leadership
team at the institute is really about where can we and I be most effective.
We just launched a new equine behavior course, which is completely online,
you know, with videos and things like that to just see, like, where
are people accessing information?
How can I, you know, work, which is my internal drive, you know, for a more just
world, for people, for horses, for, again, people with different identities that
might disadvantage it them in the eyes of others, you know, like disabilities
or being neurodivergent or being a woman or, you know, these things that
are categorical instead of individual?
You know, I I I think then a lot, like I said, right now, because I have some
some ability to make things happen more and more without having to lift the whole
thing myself, you know, which which is not unusual in early early career, of course.
But but to really think, where can we and I be most effective?
Where can we make the most impact with these messages again about
about justness and about equity?
Rupert Isaacson: And where is that?
Where where I where do you feel you can make the most impact
in the in the next short term?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
So far, of course, it is a lot of people access things more easily online.
Okay.
So, you know, being able to offer offer access to our, you know,
research, access to learning.
But at the same time, interestingly enough, the postmasters program that I
lead, we require 3 in person trainings in a or, like, it it's a limited
residency 10 month training program.
It's an advanced program.
It's long.
It's not and, you know, that perhaps sells faster, let's say, if you're
doing a shorter thing over a weekend.
But here, instead of reducing the in person training, we we are we are staying
with 3, 4 day trainings across 10 months, which is quite a lot of in person activity
and might be, again, more profitable, let's say, to run it differently.
But there, I'm finding that the impact, the the return on investment
for the participants is so so much higher when they are actually training
hands on in a very defined culture.
So it's not a drop in drop out, which also increases access,
but I'm sort of modeling that.
You know, I'm thinking both about how does this look when it is more online
or accessible, but also how does it look when you're really doing a very
specifically kind of specific culture of learning in advanced training.
And we've really, you know, found great success with the postmasters
program to the point where we're full, you know, we're full constantly.
Rupert Isaacson: Wow.
And in terms of and not.
Sorry.
Ohio.
I was mixing it up with the Lusitano and Spanish shorts I
I that I'd like to show for.
I was like, Ohio and and Hetty, where where are you hopeful that
the work with these international equine assisted bodies is going?
What would you like to see?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Again, international work is so tricky.
I was just supporting my colleagues at HETI about this about another
international project that I'm that I'm not a part of, but I was lending lending
my input when when invited to do so.
And I think that the movements internationally, there's a balance
between this idea that there's just 1 right way that I, you know, I can
work more intensively with that within a specific culture or in this case
within a specific health care system.
I know how the US health care system works, and I know how this how
how to best go forward with that.
So there in those context, I'm very much you know, able to be very specific, which
an international organization might not be, not with those kinds of details.
But what I'd like to see internationally when where you can't really advise people
within their own health care systems, you have to know how that how it works
and and how what words are being used and how to what's acceptable welfare.
Like, what is acceptable here?
Because it becomes a social license to operate more so than actual
governmental licenses and things like that in most cases, especially in
the US, where it's more about, hey.
This is how we're doing this thing.
Do you wanna be part of this?
This is how we're modeling.
This is how we appear.
This is how, you know, as a group, as an area what we accept and we don't accept.
And I feel like we're getting closer to things like not
accepting 24 hour confinement, extreme confinement, specifically.
And then, you know, 1 hour you get to do a therapy session with if you're a
horse, you know, you get to come out of this stall and do this 1 thing,
and then you get to call back in.
I think it's it's the idea isn't to create barriers for access.
The idea is to remove the the the physical structure in a lot of cases, but to
rethink the design and what's allowable for horses and and what we accept for
horses because it doesn't necessarily mean we have to have bigger places outside
of the city and only some access them.
Sometimes it means we just have to redesign and rethink
what we already have here.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I I agree.
It's very interesting.
The the project in Dublin, central Dublin child vision, which, as you may know, is
a school for the visually impaired, but it's right in the middle of the city.
And when it started, it has an equine program, and we've been
involved there for some years.
And when we first became involved there, they had quite a lot of
land and then it all got sold.
And they're down to the stable yard, an arena, 1 very, very small turnout paddock,
and a rugby field that they have to share with the local school with around which
they have a sensory trail and then the be you know, a bit of another trail.
And the people who are running the equine program there, Terry Brosnan,
who was a guest on on on this podcast, and Lucy Dillon, who I hope to get on.
They've been incredibly inventive about how to make sure that the horses get
their outside time, get their crazy time being free jumped as in groups
in the arena, in herds that they get to go out and be hand walked and hand
grazed and that they built this in as part of the therapy so that they're
not having a conflict of time between, well, I've got to see all the serve all
these clients, but how am I gonna get time to train or or serve the horses?
But it's it's built into the client time.
And then, of course, they're rotated out of the city every week or 2 as
well, so they're just allowed to go into a field and just live out.
And they've been very proactive about this.
But as you yeah.
As you know, it's it's it's not always the case.
Well, what are you what are you the most excited about in terms of because you get
to look at a lot of different programs.
What are you excited about in the sort of general way the
equine assisted world is going?
And are there some programs out there that you feel that we should be aware
of that are more recent that we feel you feel we should be taking a look at?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
And I can mention having worked with Child Wish Vision a bit too and and
knowing Terry Brosnan really well.
Yeah.
So I've been aware of what you all are doing, of course there that it's
I I just wanna highlight them also as an example of very restricted,
like you said, like, space Yeah.
And serving folks in a very central location and really, really
feeling out that balance of, you know, is this is this sufficient?
Can we do it this way?
Should we do it this way with what we have given the the
changes that they experienced?
But the I think the the key thing that some folks lack is the right attitude.
And ChildVision has that right attitude, meaning they are willing
to examine every part of their equine living environment and their
prostheses and then try to see, okay.
We're gonna do this to the max here with what we have and then, you know, assess
that in a really sort of honest way.
And that quality I think when I think about sort of programs and people
and things like that, I think mostly about when I encounter that quality.
And and I I consult for a foundation here in Southern Colorado called
Flying Horse Foundation, and they're very similar like that.
You know, the attitude is there, meaning we can solve the
other stuff in various ways.
But we can't solve an attitude that's not willing to be willing to examine
really the truth about our relationships with horses, which is we do, you know,
we do what we want, and we kinda want them to be okay too, but we cannot
we can't sort of delude ourselves about the power difference between us.
So that's, I guess, what I would be most excited about also internationally
given that people think about equine interactions in so many ways, it
would be to continue cultivating an attitude, An attitude that I actually
also have seen saw quite a bit in my early work with you all in Texas.
Right?
The this attitude of, like, if the attitude's right, we
can solve this other stuff.
Yeah.
But we can't without a creative mind.
We can't without some resources, but the point isn't to have unlimited resources.
Yeah.
The point is to to be able to really work with what you have.
And that's what I do when I do facility design consultation for I get to do this
with, you know, also equestrian facilities outside of human horse interactions.
That's what gets me excited.
That's what I wanna help cultivate in people.
And I try to model it, of course, in myself, but I'm that's maybe
where I wanna has to go as an area.
You know?
Rupert Isaacson: So how can listeners learn more, get involved, and,
also, how can they help how can they become part of that mission
for example, with Etienne, Ohio.
And so if someone is it it's a lot of the people who are gonna be tuning
into this, they won't necessarily be, you know, veterans of the field.
A lot of people a lot of them are young people who are looking
to go into this as a profession.
And there's a kind of as you know now, there's this kind of almost too big of a
smorgasbord of available ways to go in now where it was very narrow a few years ago.
So, yeah, a, how how do people reach you, and what involvement and participation
can they have in what you're doing and what these organizations are doing?
And then from there, I'm gonna ask you for some advice for some
people coming into the industry.
So so to start with, how do people contact you, get involved, and
what kind of involvement would be useful to the university and and
to these organizations to kind of bring this whole field forward, do
Nina Ekholm Fry: you feel?
Yes.
Yeah.
The main the main important involvement is the person with themselves.
Like like, finding what you're interested in and then modeling,
living through your values, which can be hard if you don't have a
tribe or a or a context or community.
Mhmm.
But they will they are they are there out there.
You just have to try to find which 1 is right for you.
But the most important valuable way of starting to get involved is, of course,
to seek out knowledge, but then start living living through it yourself.
You know?
So you're not just sort of passive passively thinking about stuff, but
getting in there and finding opportunities where you can try different things out.
When it comes to the university, you know, we of course, mostly
work internally with our students.
You know?
We have formal formal processes because we're a university that relates to them.
Even if you are, you know, students at University of
Denver, they can be work studies.
They can be part of our research as student researchers, things like that.
So we we do a lot of that training, but it's internal to the university.
Seeking out some of our we we have professional development courses and
things like that, but we also do, like, you know, stream presentations
and and do other kind of, you know, really accessible stuff.
So connecting with us as an institute, either on our social media or
getting on our newsletter list.
You can, you know, be in be be see what we're doing and where we wanna go.
Working with me you can contact me by email, contact me on Facebook, you know,
tell me what you're interested in and and see what I can do to connect you,
what I can do to sort of, create a a community or show you communities that
where you can be effective because, again, you can be effective in your
own right modeling, just being a person who's interested in always being
curious and always finding new things.
But you can also then get involved with some of the older older
organizations, so to speak, who may benefit a bit from a little better
pace on the change if that makes sense.
So I encourage all everyone to get there's typically committees and task forces.
This all involves volunteer work and that might not be everybody might not have
those hours to spare you know, equitably.
But, you know, that's what we need.
We're we're we need it's such a big change, like you said, from a few years
ago or a decade ago when there's just a few people who got to say things.
And then those people had their student, and they got to say the same thing.
And now, you know, we have access to a much broader kind of spectrum
of of experiences here in this area of human humans and horses.
So that's that's where I would start there.
I think you had a follow-up a
Rupert Isaacson: follow-up question.
Yeah.
If if people are I'm I'm gonna get those resources that you mentioned
in a few minutes so people will know the the email will know the social
media and the websites and so on.
But what would be your advice for young people going into this field now?
Because it's a it's a much broader field than it was and they need to orient
themselves and find out perhaps where they fit and what the opportunities are.
What's your advice?
Yeah.
Nina Ekholm Fry: I I think that it's really useful to think about
human animal interactions in the context also of your human interests,
especially if you wanna, again, provide services where you include animals.
Meaning, you might be particularly interested in the OCD community of
obsessive compulsive disorders, and you you are knowledgeable and you're
an advocate in with this you know, severe mental illness and the experience
of of OCD, and then you learn, hey.
What are the protective factors?
It could be animal relationships.
It could be getting treatment outdoors instead of indoors.
Like, you're you I I encourage people to sort of there there are some people whose
niche is more squarely on the animal side, and they're assisting with understanding
the animals as part of human services.
But if you're at all interested in interacting on the human side, really
becoming immersed and knowledgeable about that human topic, whether
it's a specific area of learning or or or or support services.
Right?
Or if you're interested in what a lot of people, you know,
contact me and say horse therapy.
I I just wanna do horse therapy.
My question is always, do you want to be a health care provider?
Because therapy is typically thought of as as part of of health care.
Are you passionate about that?
Are you passionate about treatment?
You know?
If so, let's think about what kind of license you wanna pursue and then think
about how can you include interactions with horses to enhance this to really
help people have an even more enhanced experience, you know, of their of their
psychotherapy work and influence some of the colleagues to whom a client can't
even say they've lost their dog because they're gonna say, oh, your dog died.
Whatever.
I thought your brother was ill.
Yeah.
And you care about 50 times more about this dog than your brother.
Like, we have to sort of change that kind of culture.
So and and the same can go in any area.
You might not be interested in health care.
You might be interested in other services that actually
suit some populations better.
And then be really good at that, be really good at the context
you're in, and then understand how those animal interactions fit.
Is again, I'm taking just 1 1 angle here.
There's many more It's
Rupert Isaacson: a good it's a very good angle, though because I think what
you've touched on is that when people are coming out of the horse community
wanting to go into, quote, unquote, therapeutic riding, which is just the
term a lot of people would use in a very general way without necessarily knowing
what that is or quite where they would end up within the equine assisted field.
I think what you've touched on is that a lot of people want to come into it
from a just well, I want to use horses.
I love horses, and I wanna use horses to help people feel better, which is,
of course, a laudable and good thing.
But I think that often it's not thought through much more than that.
And then if you put yourself in, say, my position as an autism father, well,
I would like, in a perfect world, the person who's interacting with my
autistic child to have a really, really, really solid background in autism.
I also want them to have the horse skills, of course.
But I want them to be taking that deep and vocational interest in
the condition that my son has.
Otherwise, there's a bit of a limit to what they can offer.
And so I think your point is is actually very valid that if you're
horsey and you want to go into the equine assisted world, you've probably
got some horse skills already.
And, of course, we can always upscale ourselves.
There'll be a a small minority of people that come in as absolute
rookies, but most people do it because they're already involved in horses.
But I agree with you.
It's not enough.
I I think that without taking seriously the vocational feel of trying to be
quite specific about the population or populations that you wanna work with
because, of course, there's interplay between them, is something that I think
isn't often thought through by people when they're going into the industry.
And then what happens is they can end up getting a bit lost.
Do you know of courses, training programs, orientation programs, that
sort of thing that are being offered by some of these larger organizations
that you're now involved with or other institutions that some of these people
entering the industry could look to to help themselves get oriented?
Yeah.
Nina Ekholm Fry: My my advice, and, of course, it's gonna be a little biased,
is to check us out as an academic institution because we have some trainings
for sure, but we are also not like we also function as a knowledge hub.
Right.
Meaning, we're not needing to sell our own stuff.
We have a university structure that helps, you know, keep us also going and that
affords us that kind of a perspective, right, where I can't you know, if I ran
my own own business, I wouldn't, you know, miss an opportunity to promote it.
But it's it becomes a little different when you get to be in
the in that this academic setting.
It kinda have some drawbacks too, but but that's what I would say,
you know, people who are interested in various ways that forces can be
included can on them their own think.
What kind of human service do I wanna do like we said?
What do I wanna be really serious about, really knowledge knowledgeable about,
really make sure I'm not missing the mark here, being harmful unintentionally.
Mhmm.
And then about including, you know, horses there because you can include interactions
with animals so you can emphasize them in just endless amounts of human
human services and human professions.
So that's where I would sort of go because it depends on if people
wanna do adaptive writing lessons.
I would send them 1 way.
I have that credential as well.
If they wanna do another kind of school based work and and really
just wanna get going on learning about some of the curriculum
examples, I know where to send them.
So but I think the overall idea kinda capturing this this idea that if you
think about it in that way, that the human service exists and you include
the horse into that human service, it really helps you stay clear on, I need
to be really good at both these things.
Yeah.
It's in both differences.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
I couldn't agree more.
In some ways, it makes it 1 of the most complex fields to go into
because then you've you've got the whole human side and the condition
that you're looking to dress.
But then you've got the whole horse training for that side, and then you got
the whole horse welfare side before you're even looking at the organizational ups and
downs of of running programs and so on.
You know, it's it's really generous of you to say that you can guide
people and people can email you.
I know there are gonna be some people that will want to.
Can you give us an email that we can give to people?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Absolutely.
I and I will make sure I have it in writing.
It's gonna be my, you know, my should I say it now, or should we put it
Rupert Isaacson: in writing?
Now, and I'll repeat it, and then I'll I'll I'll get it for we'll we'll make sure
it's there as a as a link in the blurb.
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yes.
And we'll write it down.
And the good thing is because I have 3 names, if you put all those 3 names
1 after another in in your Internet engine, you will most likely land on me.
Just
Rupert Isaacson: make sure you do any econ fries out there.
It's true.
Yeah.
No.
Nina Ekholm Fry: I know.
It's the extra name.
You know?
It's sort of probability wise adds it.
So my email is my first name, n I n a, and then there's a period, and then
there's my middle name, e k h o l m.
And then in my email, there's a hyphen, but, otherwise, there is not.
F r y at
Rupert Isaacson: It it runs in, yeah, aircon fry is just 1 word.
Right?
In this At is a
Nina Ekholm Fry: hyphen hyphen between aircon Right?
But, really, in my name, there is not.
Go ahead.
Address, there was technological restraints in how how how
you can write these 3 names.
So, yeah, first name, n I n a, period, e k h o l m, hyphen, f r y at, d as in
Denver, u as in university, dot e d u.
And that's how you can find me directly.
You can also find this email, like I said, by by searching for my name and
d and u, and you'll see the university, and you'll see my faculty page as well.
So let
Rupert Isaacson: me read this back to you.
Nina, n I n a, dot e kholm, e k h o l m, hyphen, f r y at d u dot e d u?
Perfect.
Okay.
Got it.
And then give us a website that people can go to to learn more about
the work at the university that you're doing, the the institute.
Nina Ekholm Fry: So, Yes.
Easiest way to is to type in IHAC.
So it's an acronym for Institute for Human Animal Connection.
So it's I h a c dot, d as in Denver, u as in university, dot e d u.
So just put in I hack dot d u dot e d u, and you'll find our institute.
Our institute's work where you'll learn a lot more about our research
areas, a lot more about our our events and professional development
and training, and also just how we wanna implement or bring to practice
the knowledge that we also generate through our through our our research.
Rupert Isaacson: I h a c dot d u dot e d u.
Institute for Human and Animal Connection at Denver University.
And there, they can also learn access your online education stuff, the
events you do, the streaming events that you do, and they can sort of join
that community and benefit from that.
That's if if someone this was gonna be another question.
If if if people are running programs and they want to find get oriented towards
finding studies that back up the work that they're doing which, of course, is always
helpful when they're looking for funding.
Does iHAC can it help them with that to find some some of the
studies that will support the work, the equine assisted work?
Nina Ekholm Fry: Yeah.
We don't have a a public repository, but others do.
And there's actually a big 1 run by Fran Jurga who who's, you know, an
equine an equine assisted studies repository where you can, you
know, search yourself, so to speak.
Okay.
Because because our systems are you know, our university libraries and
things are are are university specific, which is 1 of the limitations,
sadly, of working in that system.
Yeah.
But that's how I would that's how I would start the search and also knowing
that when you're looking for research to support your proposals, your grant
applications, My my top tip is you're gonna need to be creative because there's
research, but the research is as varied as some of the experiences Rupert and
I have talked about where sometimes you walk into a a a training place and you're
gonna run a course and you go, okay.
We have different thoughts about about horses here.
And interestingly enough, because the, you know, equine interactions
or horse interactions area is so niche, sometimes and I've been, as I
mentioned, a journal editor myself, but sometimes I think that people
just said, ah, you can publish that.
That's fine.
It sounds interesting.
And we sorta lost lost the plot a little bit on on the rigor.
So that would be my also my top tip that in all things, we must be creative.
There won't be a treasure trove of research articles that are perfect.
You are still going to need to, you know, sort of work on your work on your
case and not and not rely on on some perhaps medium quality stuff that's out
Rupert Isaacson: there.
But you say there's there's someone called Fran Jurgen who has put together
a repository of the of assisted studies?
She
Nina Ekholm Fry: has a huge repository and I'm kinda now kinda blanking
on the exact name of its this
Rupert Isaacson: call.
She's j u r g a, isn't she?
Fran yoga?
Yeah.
Yes.
Nina Ekholm Fry: With a j.
Yes.
And she's based
Rupert Isaacson: up is she based up in Massachusetts, I seem to think?
Perhaps.
Nina Ekholm Fry: Perhaps.
I just I talked to Yeah.
I talked to her just, like, a couple of months ago last,
but but, yeah, check it out.
I can't the the actual name escapes me, but I it shouldn't be too hard to find.
That's something that she's been working on.
And so been
Rupert Isaacson: a labor of love for her to put that together
just to help advance the field?
Nina Ekholm Fry: I don't know.
We'll have to investigate more.
I only know that she's in touch with me regularly to check-in about
publications and things like that.
So she's really you know, invested in in sort of bringing things
together in an accessible place.
It's it's my experience, but we we have to investigate further.
She might be an interesting guest too.
So
Rupert Isaacson: No.
She might well.
And, actually, I'm I'm I'm looking her up now.
So if if if listeners want to type in her name, Fran Jurga, j u r g a, you'll see
that she pops up that she's a researcher.
She also other types of veterinary, equine science, hoof care, equine podiatry,
equestrian sport, veterinary medicine.
So it's it's she's quite broad.
And yeah, I can see the resources just so.
If you just just typing in her name gets 1 to So I think it should
might actually be in Michigan.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, that's a good tip.
Well, listen.
It's been it's been great to reconnect with you.
It always is.
And I'm just so impressed with how you've just helped to advance the field.
And 1 thing which I've also really appreciated, I think, You know, when I
first got involved in things that Equine assisted, I didn't do it by choice.
As you know, I did it because my son had this reaction to the horse, and
so I followed it and off we went.
But, of course, I found out very quickly how factional and sometimes
toxic the world of equine assisted stuff was sadly, and it came from a
scarcity mentality of of people being worried, I think, that there was a
limited number of resources out there.
So anything new is a threat.
And I think that it's not quite as bad as that anymore.
And I think that's been I think you've been hugely influential
in that, actually, Nina.
I think your Scandinavian sense of justice and fairness so Nordic, really, I
should say, has made a real contribution.
I've I've I've watched you over the years bringing people together,
bringing people together, bringing the organizations together, making
sure everybody has a profile.
And I think you've act I think it's actually born fruit.
I think that you've helped to make the culture itself more empathetic, which
was very necessary because we're supposed to be providing empathetic services.
So if we're not leading with that ourselves, then there's a bit of
a limit to the what we can offer to to a client who needs it.
But, really you you've you've been very instrumental in that
ever since the Prescott days.
So, you know, please please keep doing it.
And anything we can do to support, you must let us know because it's it goes
so beyond individual methodologies.
It's 1 big field, and I see it much more almost like a a
university with a bunch of different faculties, but they're all related.
They're all related.
And it's if we want health authorities and governments and so forth to
take us to the next level, then we also have to start behaving
like grown ups at least in public.
So, I think you've been an inspiration that way, and you've you've you've you've
brought out the best in people to to sort of bring their higher self to the field.
So thank you for that.
Nina Ekholm Fry: Well, thank you.
That was a that was a lovely, uplifting thing, and that's what
I've always felt from you too.
So I I I love the the symbiosis here.
And I so appreciate being a guest on this on this podcast.
You know?
I I just I mean, our conversations are always great, but to be able to
be part of the podcast community as well and to everybody listening Yeah.
That's so lovely.
So thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: And anytime you've got you know, and the institute has something
new coming up, let us know, and we can broadcast it, let people know, big it up.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
Wow.
Well, I know that you've you've probably run over the time that you
needed to give because fair full disclosure listeners, I was a bit late.
And so, Nina's actually been very generous to let us go as long as I know
she needs to run off to another meeting.
So thank you.
And let's catch up soon, and hopefully, we get to do this again.
Nina Ekholm Fry: Of course.
We we can only hope.
No.
I would love to.
So thank you you again for having me, for letting me talk about my human horse
interaction staff, and, again, for being part of this with all your listeners.
Thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: K.
See you soon.
Bye.
thank you for joining us.
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