{"id":1926,"date":"2018-12-11T17:36:34","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T00:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/?p=1926"},"modified":"2018-12-11T17:36:34","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T00:36:34","slug":"helping-with-horses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/helping-with-horses\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping With Horses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since I began my journey with community service work as a rodeo queen a few years ago, I knew that my purpose was to help educate others about agriculture. This passion helped lead me to the University of Wyoming, where I am currently in my junior year, studying Animal Science with an Equine concentration. With this concentration, I am required to take 4 credits of Horsemanship; a self-guided course that focuses on learning more about horses and gaining more experience in whatever field you plan to go in to. After graduating, I plan to return home to my family\u2019s ranch in Colorado and start a therapeutic riding program, so I chose to complete my Horsemanship credits by volunteering for a local therapeutic riding center. I could have never imagined the amount of experience I would gain from volunteering two days a week for just a few hours.<\/p>\n

Ark Regional Services is a local company that provides opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities to work, live, learn and play. One of their services is Ark Equestrian Center, where I help out with their equine assisted activities. Ark Equestrian Center provides therapy services and employment opportunities to those with intellectual and physical disabilities. Throughout the two months that I have been volunteering, I have had the ability to work with two main classes; a group of children from Spring Creek Elementary, and an adult Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) class. I knew that I wanted to eventually become a certified therapeutic riding instructor, but what I didn\u2019t know was there are many different branches under the equine assisted therapy \u201cumbrella\u201d. There are many different types of therapy that involve the assistance of a horse, including Equine Assisted Learning, Occupational Therapy, Equine Therapeutic Riding, Equine Assisted Psychotherapy; the list goes on. I\u2019ve focused mainly on Equine Assisted Learning, which is probably one of the most amazing types of therapy I\u2019ve experienced.<\/p>\n

Equine Assisted Learning has many different benefits that includes understanding and learning truth, honesty, respect and communication. Horses also help teach us to think in a different way by requiring us to have a heightened self-awareness. At Ark, they teach critical life skills that help the clients gain self-esteem and self-confidence, something that everybody can benefit from. Having grown up with horses, I know firsthand the impact that being around horses has on someone\u2019s well-being. It is the most humbling experience being able to work with the clients at Ark, and they have truly become a second family to me.<\/p>\n

Coming to the University of Wyoming has opened so many doors for my future career in the equine industry, and I\u2019m so glad that I have been able to dedicate my time at Ark Equestrian Center to helping others better their lives with the help of horses.<\/p>\n

-Lauren Hladik<\/p>\n

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Ever since I began my journey with community service work as a rodeo queen a few years ago, I knew that my purpose was to help educate others about agriculture. This passion helped lead me to the University of Wyoming, where I am currently in my junior year, studying Animal Science with an Equine concentration. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ambassador-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Le20-v4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1926"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1948,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions\/1948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wyoextension.org\/agambassadors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}