THE CONCEPT
From soldiers for soldiers
There are plenty of equine-assisted therapy providers around - then why develop a Bundeswehr-owned program? It would be easy for the Bundeswehr to hire the services of a private provider - which they have done very successfully in the past - and build on that cooperation if necessary.
Military deployment experience is a clear advantage
According to the experiences of Remount Foundation at the US Air Force Academy, who have employed equine-assisted interventions very successfully for the American military since 1999, it makes a big difference for Wounded Warriors whether the therapy team has a military background or is at least very much familiar with a military environment.
Our experiences with equine-assisted interventions in the Bundeswehr only corroborate this finding:
In every run of the current Study for the Efficacy of Equine-based Therapy, the participants explicitely state that they prefer a Bundeswehr-owned therapy team with deployment experience. Families, who have participated in an equine-assisted ASEM-retreat of the military chaplaincy in August 2021 explicitely noted the advantages of a therapy team with a military background.
This finding is actually not very surprising:
Most participants have developed PTSD because of trauma experienced in one or several deployments. They feel more understood and can trust more easily if the therapy team shares those experiences and understands the specificities of the military culture, its values, norms and customs.
Higher reach withown staff
A deep understanding for military specificities is not the only reason, why we advocate for a Bundeswehr owned program.
By utilizing interested Bundeswehr staff as therapy teams, we only have to find suitable privately owned horse operations who are willing to provide their horses and infrastructure for comparably low costs. The Bundeswehr staff will receive the education in equine-based intervention methods as an additional qualification paid for by Remount Deutschland and can then employ their skills to help Wounded Warriors based on demand and availability within their existing positions - similar to the "Lotsen"-program in the Bundeswehr. Therefore, there will be no additional cost for the therapy teams. If you are interested in becoming part of the network of therapy teams, contact us here.
Based on our experience so far, there seems to be a high willingness of private horse barn owners to let the Bundeswehr use their animals and infrastructure for therapeutic work. For the Bundeswehr-owned arm of the Study for the Efficacy of Equine-based Therapy, we had identified a total of four potential horse operations who offered the use of their infrastructure and horses for very little money. In addition, we are using our own horses for the Study as well as for the ASEM-retreat (for no charge). We know of several colleagues who have horses and have offered to use the horses for equine-assisted interventions to help their comrades. If you would like to offer the use of your infrastructure or horses, please click here.
By combining suitable Bundeswehr-owned staff with private horse barns, a broad rollout in multiple locations will be possible.
The right tool for every problem
We propagate a broad portfolio of different equine-assisted intervention programs (e.g. Horseboy℠, OK Corral, EAGALA, ATHENA℠, Holzrücken, etc.). Combining these methods allows us to find the perfect fit for every problem of our clients, to increase the intervention success rate and minimize intervention cancellations.
Every one of these programs has a different approach and a set of pre-defined and constituting rules. That's understandable - the programs use those rules to commit and enforce their high quality standards, among other things. Not every approach fits every problem though. In some cases, those rules can even be counter-productive and lead to the cancellation of a necessary intervention.
For example, in the beginning of their journey with PTSD, some clients are not aware of their problem enough to commit to "therapy" in the usual sense. For those candidates the ATHENA-approach could be helpful, in which horses are trained for the later use in Horseboy playdates. EAGALA
Manche Kamerad:innen zu Beginn ihrer Reise mit der Einsatzschädigung haben beispielsweise noch nicht das ausreichende Problembewusstsein, um sich auf eine "Therapie" im engeren Sinne einzulassen. Für diese Kandidaten wäre beispielsweise der ATHENA-Ansatz zielführend, da hier das Training der Pferde für den späteren Therapieeinsatz im Rahmen von Horseboy Playdates im Vordergrund steht. EAGALA for example does not allow exercises on horseback. PATH International centers on horseback riding, but wearing a helmet is one of the basic rules - which is hard to imagine for a commando soldier, for example.
This combination of methods is modelled after Remount Foundation at the US Air Force Academy, which uses different methods based on the individual situation and problem: for example ground-based obstacle-exercises from OK Corral, sensory work from Horseboy, or just a therapeutic talk during a ride in the beautiful nature.
A larger context ...
By establishing a Bundeswehr-owned concept that relies on many different providers, multiple opportunities arise that would not be possible as purely equine-assisted interventions.
For example, several participants of the Study have expressed the desire to work on a horse barn, because they found the nature-based work with animals very healing. A similar approach already exists in the US as a "Warfighter internship", in which Wounded Warriors are employed as interns at the Equestrian Center. This concept offers additional opportunities to keep the cost low for the Bundeswehr, if suitable candidated work as "interns" with small private horse operations as part of their reintegraton efforts according to the German military reintegration law (EinsatzWVG).
Furthermore, equine-assisted intervention elements could be integrated into the existing post-deployment seminars (ENBS). Based on the extremely positive feedback for the ASEM-retreat, an integration of Horseboy playdates in family-post-deployment seminars seems very promising.