Right Moves: A LiiNK Center for Healthy Play Podcast

In light of Human Trafficking Awareness month, Dr. Rhea sits down with Bob Williams, founder and CEO of Ranch Hands Rescue and Bob’s House of Hope. Bob shares his incredible and profound personal journey of trauma, resilience, and hope which led to the founding of his non-profit programs. He discusses the problem with human trafficking and sexual violence of boys and men. Many programs focus on women, but there were no programs that knew what to do with a male who experienced these same types of trauma. You don’t want to miss this episode.

Trigger warning: This episode contains themes of sexual violence and coercion, drug addiction, and homelessness.

Bob Williams is the Founder and CEO of Ranch Hands Rescue and Bob’s House of Hope, a non-profit human and animal sanctuary. Being a survivor of rape himself, Bob knew firsthand that there weren’t any programs for male sexual abuse survivors, and he endeavored to create a place for others like him.

After suffering a brutal beating and rape as a young man, Bob struggled to process his trauma and turned to drugs and alcohol to mask his pain. He was homeless at 20 and active in his addiction for 12 years. After years of treatment and counseling, Bob had a very successful career at Motorola where he went from an entry-level salesperson to part of the management team. Today Bob has been clean and sober for 33 years. When Bob suffered a stroke in 2007, he decided to retire from Motorola. After a year of rehabilitation, Bob felt called to start a not-for-profit organization that would rescue and rehabilitate animals and help people.

In 2008 Bob founded Ranch Hands Rescue, a non-profit farm animal sanctuary for animals with special needs. After discovering the healing power, the animals had on him, Bob and a team of clinicians founded the Ranch Hands Rescue Counseling Program, and the Equine and Animal Assisted Counseling was born. Bob's vision was to partner abused and neglected animals with individuals who do not respond to traditional therapy. His counseling program is the only program in the country that partners abused and neglected animals in mental health therapy. Bob's passion is helping innocent victims, especially children, who require a non-traditional approach to uncovering severe trauma. He assembled a team of counseling experts who are highly trained and certified in trauma and PTSD to be another resource in our community to help individuals who are suffering and see no hope. RHR fills a special niche in mental health counseling services in that they specialize in treating the more complex trauma cases, such as victims of sexual abuse, human trafficking, and Veterans with severe PTSD who are not making progress in their current treatment programs.

Bob serves on several State and local task forces, and it was on these taskforces that Bob learned that there was not a single treatment facility in the world for male victims of sex trafficking even though they make up nearly half of the victims. This galvanized Bob to remedy that issue and Bob’s House of Hope, the first safe house in the country for male victims of sex trafficking 18 years old and up, was opened in June of 2021, with an expansion in 2024, the new facility housed on 40 acres includes additional housing, offices recreation center, soccer field and house over 50 special needs animals. This innovative, wrap-around care program is unlike any other program that exists.

In this second installment of our exciting two-part season finale special, we bring back Dr. Michelle Bauml as our moderator and put Dr. Rhea back in the hot seat! This time, Dr. Rhea answers your burning questions about bringing the LiiNK Project to your school. How do we incorporate four recess breaks into the school day without compromising content time? Why do we suggest 15-minute breaks instead of 30 minutes? These are just a couple of our many frequently asked questions, and Dr. Rhea answers them ALL!

Dr. Michelle Bauml is a Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning Sciences at TCU with an emphasis in social studies education. As a former elementary teacher, Dr. Bauml’s research and teaching reflect her beliefs that children need ample opportunities for creative expression, play, and meaningful instruction in today’s schools. She conducts qualitative research aimed at helping teachers navigate professional complexities to make thoughtful, effective curricular and instructional decisions in order to promote student learning.

Kicking off our two-part season finale special, we bring on friend and colleague, Dr. Michelle Bauml, as our moderator to flip the script and ask Dr. Rhea about how LiiNK has evolved and burning questions you have asked over the years. That’s right – Dr. Rhea is in the hot seat! Hear the story of how and why LiiNK began, and why LiiNK continues to work in U.S. schools despite rampant teacher burnout and the setbacks of the global pandemic that continue to affect many today.

Dr. Michelle Bauml is a Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning Sciences at TCU with an emphasis in social studies education. As a former elementary teacher, Dr. Bauml’s research and teaching reflect her beliefs that children need ample opportunities for creative expression, play, and meaningful instruction in today’s schools. She conducts qualitative research aimed at helping teachers navigate professional complexities to make thoughtful, effective curricular and instructional decisions in order to promote student learning.

Close your eyes and go to your happy place… Can you hear the birds chirping? Feel the breeze against your face? Taste the salt in the air from the ocean ahead? Imagination is a powerful gift which can be used to manage anxiety and stress or improve performance, but how often are you utilizing it to its full potential? In this last of four installments in our Stress Relief Strategies series, Dr. Rhea discusses the practice of imagery to improve illness, performance, and promote relaxation and focus.

Oftentimes, words cannot accurately depict what we are feeling. Maybe there’s not an exact word for it, or maybe we just don’t know how to express our emotions. When words don’t work, art therapy may be the answer. In this episode, Dr. Rhea dives into the power of art therapy and some of the various ways you can utilize art as a tactile means to release and interpret your emotions in a healthy and introspective way. This is the third installment of our 4-part Stress Relief Strategies series.

Each of us has our own special connection to music, whether it’s the memory of seeing a favorite artist in concert, jamming out to the radio on the drive home every day, or maybe how it helped you through the stress of the pandemic. How do those experiences make you feel? Many studies have shown the vast benefits of music including stress reduction, improved brain and cardiovascular health, memory recall, and pain relief. In this part 2 of our Stress-Relief series, Dr. Rhea discusses these benefits and the various ways you can incorporate music and sound into your stress-relief journey.

If you could give yourself a score between 1-100 for how well you handle stress, what would your score be? This episode starts a 4-part series focused on stress relief strategies to improve your stress score. In part one, Dr. Rhea discusses journaling and expressing yourself through creative strategies such as dream states, realizing positivity, and finding your "tribe with a vibe".

Dr. Rhea brings back playworker and risky-play advocate, Jill Wood, to share how she brought adventure play into The Parish School in Houston, Texas, and just how beneficial it has been for her students and community. More than that, risky play is key to building resilience, joy, trust, and healthy relationships. The language and insight that playworkers bring to recess or play environments helps determine when play that is observed is risky in a healthy way or in a hazardous way. This session highlights different playworker approaches that are beneficial to the rights of a child to play in risky ways.

Jill Wood is founding director of⁠ Adventure Play at The Parish School⁠, an outdoor, child-directed after school program in Houston Texas. It is one of only a handful of adventure playgrounds in the United States and the only one based at a school for children with speech and language delays. Jill is founder of ⁠Bayou City Play⁠, a group of educators and therapists, who partner with organizations to improve play opportunities in the Houston metro area, and she provides training as a regional consultant for UK-based Pop-Up Adventure Play. She is mom to an amazing 10-year-old, who is the real expert on play in our household.

Resoures mentioned in this episode:

Play Wales - ⁠https://play.wales/playwork/⁠

Pop-up Adventure Play - ⁠https://www.popupadventureplay.org/⁠

Bayou City Play - ⁠https://www.bayoucityplay.com/⁠

The Playwork Principles - ⁠https://playwork.foundation/the-playwork-principles/⁠

The Playwork Primer: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/⁠https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED511455.pdf⁠

Play Street Initiative - ⁠https://londonplaystreets.org.uk/

Playwork is a unique approach, developed alongside adventure playgrounds in the U.K., to create and maintain spaces for unstructured, child-directed play. It has now become popular across the U.K., the U.S. and Canada. Dr. Rhea brings on playworker and risky-play advocate, Jill Wood, to share the principles of Playwork and what drew her to this approach in schools and after school programs.

Jill Wood is founding director of Adventure Play at The Parish School, an outdoor, child-directed after school program in Houston Texas. It is one of only a handful of adventure playgrounds in the United States and the only one based at a school for children with speech and language delays. Jill is founder of Bayou City Play, a group of educators and therapists, who partner with organizations to improve play opportunities in the Houston metro area, and she provides training as a regional consultant for UK-based Pop-Up Adventure Play. She is mom to an amazing 10-year-old, who is the real expert on play in our household.

Resoures mentioned in this episode:

Play Wales - https://play.wales/playwork/

Pop-up Adventure Play - https://www.popupadventureplay.org/

Bayou City Play - https://www.bayoucityplay.com/

The Playwork Principles - https://playwork.foundation/the-playwork-principles/

The Playwork Primer: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED511455.pdf

Play Street Initiative - https://londonplaystreets.org.uk/

Did you know, the average 4-year-old laughs 40 times a day, while the average 40-year-old laughs only 4 times a day? Why and when did we let go of our laughter? Dr. Rhea discusses positive emotions such as laughter, joy and happiness – the healing power of experiencing these emotions daily, the detriment of living without them, and how to laugh more in our search for the proverbial funny bone.