Sometimes the cutting edge is not where you expect to find it. Way down in Birmingham, Alabama Joy O’Neal’s Red Barn has quietly been creating technology to address the potent mix of neuro-psychiatric, emotional and physical challenges faced by children and families caught up in the foster care system. 

We use the word technology deliberately here – the word does not always mean simply mechanical or digital engineering; it also means the know how on a cellular level to provide human solutions for human dilemmas.

Seeing first hand how the challenges of her own blended and special needs family responded to horses, Joy O’Neal, despite having had no horse background at all growing up in poverty in the Alabama backwoods, rose to the challenge of fulfilling the dream of a friend and riding mentor for her own family who wanted to make equine therapy available for people on low income. 

Perhaps the lack of horse background proved a strength here: Joy O’Neal set out to learn a range of equine and other healing approaches. With an unusual lack of prejudice, combining them into a potent cocktail of service that now serves as a beacon for effective and holistic equine therapy. 

Joy is also an advocate for women’s heart health, having survived a near brush with death this way herself. And because of this knows that the most important thing is providing joy (pun intended) in every moment of every day. Or at least as much as circumstance will allow. 

Join us on a fascinating exploration on how Red Barn combines a number of new approaches to achieve well being not just for children and families but also for the horses that serve them. 

Remember to send us questions for Joy’s follow up episode at [email protected]

You can find out more about The Red Barn at www.theredbarn.org

Like always also check out our other programs and shows at www.RupertIsaacson.com and subscribe to our newsletter here.

Joell Dunlap runs Square Peg Foundation one of the most successful and pioneering equine assisted programs in North America. Starting with a simple idea: how could the quirky kids find a place in the world of riding as a sport when the world of dressage and hunter jumper barns can be so judgemental and unforgiving. She fell into creating programs for people with autism, ADHD, depression, eating disorders, and so on first with jumping, dressage and polo and then organically into therapeutic world, but without losing sight of helping them learn and excel as equestrians.

The well-being of the equine partner is paramount at Square Peg and Joell is know for doing the impossible, taking off the track Thoroughbreds and putting them through the Old Masters system of training dressage from the ground with in hand work, long reining and lunging.

The clients themselves become the horse trainers and end up often finding employment through this program which is now a registered health provision for San Mateo County, CA - aka Silicon Valley.

It sounds like a slick path to success but Joell started as a teenage single mother of a child with learning challenges, working at the race tracks galloping two-year-olds in order to make ends meet. No silver spoon here. Her story provided her with the insights and compassion needed to work with challenged and at risk youth, including teenage sex-workers from San Francisco's notorious Tenderloin neighborhood, as well as putting together successful educational programs for kids, that no school would take.

Her partnerships with renowned classical dressage trainers, such as the Valenca family from Portugal, Christian Bachinger of the Spanish Riding School and Dominique Barbier have brought her a recognition internationally that she has used to help establish programs as far afield as Europe and Asia.

Join us for a fascinating discovery of how Square Peg Foundation makes all this work. And remember to subscribe and share. 

Find Joell at:

• Square Peg Foundation
• Facebook

Find more about our programs and shows

• Live Free Ride Free Podcast
• New Trails Learning Systems
• Long Ride Home

In this the Pilot Episode of Equine Assisted World, our host Rupert Isaacson - known for Horse Boy Method, Movement Method and ATHENA - takes us through how the world of equine therapies has transformed itself in the last two decades from something aimed primarily at physical disability and adaptive riding, to the current mosaic of approaches for neuro-psychiatric, emotional, clinical, and medical conditions.

What are the best practices? How can we identify them? How do we navigate this increasingly complex world through it's exciting and sometimes confusing development?

Rupert also tells the story of how he himself became involved in the equine assisted world, primarily through the journeys on horseback with his autistic son. That led to his own exploration of how horses can heal neuro-psychiatric challenges. We also look ahead to some of the exiting figures that we will be interviewing in this first season.

Join us for this Pilot and remember to subscribe and share!