About us

Our Philosophy of Nurturing Connection

Who we are

Decades of Expertise in Animal-Assisted Wellness

Healing Hearts with Hooves operates at the intersection of psychology, education, and animal science, delivering professionally guided, evidence-based therapeutic programs that acknowledge the whole person. Founded on the principle that emotional well-being is intrinsically linked to profound connection—to self, to others, and to the living world around us—we have developed a comprehensive range of services tailored to diverse needs, from individual trauma recovery and anxiety management to specialized workshops for corporate teams focused on trust, leadership, and non-verbal communication mastery. Our beautiful facility in Bradenton, Florida, located at 402 43RD STREET WEST, is designed as a calm, sprawling, restorative environment where both humans and animals thrive, meticulously adhering to the highest standards of animal welfare, client confidentiality, and clinical practice, creating a truly unique haven. We believe true healing is inherently holistic, which is why our certified staff includes experienced equine specialists, licensed mental health professionals, and seasoned animal handlers who collaborate seamlessly to ensure every interaction is meaningful, measurable, safe, and contributes positively to the client’s established therapeutic goals, establishing us as a credible and deeply caring pillar in the local wellness and therapeutic community, offering services that go far beyond standard clinical care.

Our Story

From a Single Dream to a Thriving Sanctuary

The very genesis of Healing Hearts with Hooves was rooted in a deeply personal, life-altering experience of our founder, who found an unexpected and powerful pathway to recovery and emotional integration through bonding with a rescued therapy horse during a period of profound personal challenge. This sudden, unscripted, and transformative connection revealed the urgent need and powerful efficacy of this form of animal-assisted healing within the wider community, sparking the vision that led to the creation of our organization in its initial, humble form over fifteen years ago with a powerful commitment to making a difference. We began our journey with just two retired horses who needed a purpose and a small, dedicated handful of passionate volunteers, operating initially out of a small, rented pasture with a primary focus on providing foundational equine-assisted activities for at-risk youth and children struggling with self-esteem issues. The immediate and overwhelmingly positive, sometimes instantaneous, emotional and behavioral transformations we began to witness in those early participants reinforced the urgency and validity of our core mission, compelling us to steadily and intentionally expand our vision beyond simple recreational riding to focus squarely on the critical domains of mental and emotional well-being, all while consistently maintaining the core, guiding belief that every human heart deserves a chance to heal and every animal deserves respect, exemplary care, and a loving, meaningful purpose in their lives.

What We Do

Tailored Therapeutic Experiences for Every Individual Need

Healing Hearts with Hooves offers a carefully structured yet highly flexible suite of therapeutic programs specifically designed to meet clients precisely where they are, regardless of their age, personal background, or the specific therapeutic challenge they face in their lives. Our core offerings include intensive individual one-on-one sessions, small, psychoeducational group workshops, dedicated family counseling sessions focusing on relational dynamics, and specialized programs explicitly designed for veterans, first responders, and corporate groups focusing on core themes of non-verbal leadership and team cohesion. Central to all our programs is the non-ridden interaction with our gentle animals, a deliberate focus that shifts the primary goal away from riding instruction and squarely onto emotional processing, relationship building, and self-awareness; activities are nearly always conducted on the ground and may include challenging obstacle courses, cooperative grooming tasks, and focused observation exercises that require the client to actively engage their attention, intention, and emotional state. Before any session officially begins, our clinical team conducts a comprehensive intake assessment to establish clear, personalized, and measurable goals, which ensures that the chosen activities are therapeutically relevant, align perfectly with the client’s physical comfort level and safety needs, and ultimately guarantees a program experience that is profoundly customized, deeply impactful, and professionally managed from the very first contact to the final session.

Our Mission

The Bond That Heals

Our vision

Expanding the Frontier of Experiential Wellness

Our compelling long-term vision for Healing Hearts with Hooves is to become the nationally recognized gold standard and premier resource for ethical, evidence-based animal-assisted therapy, known universally for our unique multi-species program design, our continuous contribution to research, and our unwavering commitment to exemplary animal welfare. We fundamentally aspire to significantly expand our therapeutic reach across the state of Florida and beyond, working towards establishing easily accessible satellite centers and developing robust, certified training programs to instruct and certify other professionals in our proprietary multi-species therapeutic model, ensuring consistency and quality of care nationwide. Furthermore, we are intensely dedicated to funding and supporting rigorous clinical research that quantifies the neurological, physiological, and psychological benefits of human-animal interaction, actively contributing to the broader, evolving field of mental health and helping to integrate this powerful and effective modality into mainstream clinical practice and insurance coverage. We envision a future where accessing this transformative connection with animals is not considered a luxury, but a readily available, accessible, and respected therapeutic resource for all individuals seeking critical emotional and mental healing, continuously growing our capacity to ethically serve diverse populations while maintaining the highest level of personalized care and dedicated environmental stewardship for our cherished animals and the land they call home.

Our values

Core Principles Guiding Every Interaction

Our profound work is anchored by four non-negotiable, deeply held core principles that meticulously inform every single decision, program design, and interaction we facilitate across the ranch, ensuring consistency and integrity in all that we do. Compassion is the absolute bedrock of our organization, extending equally and unconditionally to our clients, our professional staff, and, most critically, our animals, recognizing explicitly that all beings involved are on a continuous journey of growth and deserve profound kindness, respect, and deep understanding without exception. Connection serves as the primary mechanism of our therapy, emphasizing the essential development of meaningful, authentic, and non-verbal relationships—first with the honest animal, and subsequently, with the deeper self and others—as the key to overcoming debilitating isolation, trauma, and relational distress. Safety is a dual commitment, encompassing both the physical and the emotional environment, meaning we maintain immaculate, secure facilities, follow stringent professional and clinical protocols, and ensure a constantly non-judgmental, accepting atmosphere where clients can be vulnerable and explore new behaviors without any fear of criticism, failure, or harm. Finally, Excellence drives us daily to maintain the absolute highest clinical and ethical standards in all our therapeutic deliveries, ensure the exemplary well-being, training, and happiness of our animal partners, and pursue continuous professional development and advanced training for our human team, guaranteeing that every therapeutic hour spent with us is conducted with the utmost credibility, professional expertise, and profoundly genuine care, upholding the reputation of Healing Hearts with Hooves.

Our impact

Building Community Resilience Through Inner Peace

The enduring, multi-layered impact of Healing Hearts with Hooves is consciously measured not just in the individual, often dramatic, therapeutic outcomes achieved by each client, but in the powerful, positive ripple effect our work has on their nuclear families, their educational settings, and the wider Bradenton community as a whole. By successfully helping individuals to manage chronic anxiety, process unresolved grief, and regulate dysregulated emotional responses more effectively and consistently, we fundamentally empower them to step back into their personal, familial, and professional lives as more grounded, patient, communicative, and capable contributors who are better equipped to handle life’s inevitable stressors. This fundamental internal shift, multiplied across our clientele, significantly reduces familial stress, dramatically improves communication patterns within relationships, and enhances measurable classroom engagement and workplace productivity across the region. Furthermore, our organization actively seeks out and maintains strong partnerships with local non-profit organizations, mental health advocates, and local government initiatives, frequently hosting educational seminars, offering subsidized programs, and organizing free community days to powerfully de-stigmatize the process of seeking mental wellness and openly highlighting the accessibility and profound efficacy of animal-assisted intervention for all. We deeply believe that by compassionately fostering emotional healing one heart at a time, we are collectively investing in a stronger, more empathetic, and deeply resilient society, demonstrating the powerful and lasting community contribution that results from holistically prioritizing internal and relational health.

Our Team

Dedicated Professionals, Guided by Heart and Expertise

Dr. Evelyn Reed, Clinical Director & Equine Specialist

Dr. Reed is the visionary clinical leader of Healing Hearts with Hooves, holding a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology and maintaining her certification as a highly respected Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Specialist (EAGALA). With an impressive career spanning over twenty years in advanced trauma-informed care and experiential therapy, she brings a unique and powerful blend of rigorous academic training, deep clinical insight, and profound intuitive connection with animals to her foundational role. Her early career was dedicated to treating post-traumatic stress in military veterans, where she first discovered and documented the unparalleled efficacy of equine therapy in providing rapid, non-verbal breakthroughs for those resistant to traditional talk therapy. Dr. Reed personally oversees all clinical programming and staff supervision, ensuring that every therapeutic session is consistently conducted with the highest ethical and therapeutic standards, always prioritizing client safety and dignity. She firmly believes the animal-human bond naturally bypasses cognitive defenses, allowing clients to access deeply rooted emotional truths in a safe, supported, and accelerated manner, and her warm, grounded presence and expertise in interpreting subtle animal behavior make her an invaluable guide, ensuring the therapeutic journey is both appropriately challenging and deeply rewarding for every participant under her care. She is continuously researching new psychological and neurological methodologies to integrate the latest scientific insights with our unique multi-species model, relentlessly driving the organization’s commitment to clinical excellence and innovation.

Mark Chen, Program & Operations Manager

Mark Chen is the dedicated operational backbone of Healing Hearts with Hooves, responsible for the complex, seamless day-to-day management of the entire facility, including all client scheduling, staff coordination and logistics, and most importantly, ensuring the impeccable health, welfare, and continuous training of our entire, cherished animal team. He brings a strong and highly relevant background in non-profit management, organizational development, and advanced animal husbandry, holding professional certifications in sophisticated animal training techniques and farm facility safety management. Mark’s meticulous attention to detail is absolutely critical for maintaining the high standards of physical and emotional safety that define our therapeutic sanctuary, overseeing all aspects of specialized animal nutrition, routine and emergency veterinary care, and continuous behavioral assessment to ensure our co-facilitators are consistently happy, well-rested, and thriving in their important roles. Beyond his crucial logistical responsibilities, Mark possesses a quiet, genuine patience and a calming demeanor that makes him a natural mentor for volunteers and new staff members, embodying the organization’s core values of consistent care and professionalism in every aspect of his demanding role. He often participates discreetly in sessions, leveraging his extensive, intuitive knowledge of horse behavior to subtly coach clients on practical non-verbal communication and the art of partnership building, which ensures a fluid, educational, and positive experience for both the client and the animal throughout the therapeutic process.

Sarah Jenkins, Licensed Social Worker & Family Program Coordinator

Sarah Jenkins is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) with a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Florida, specializing deeply in child and adolescent development, complex trauma resolution, and family systems therapy, making her uniquely suited for our mission. Her primary therapeutic focus at HHWH is the coordination and compassionate facilitation of our family-based programs, where she masterfully utilizes the animals to help mend fractured communication patterns, address relational conflicts, and intentionally build essential empathy between parents and children within a supportive framework. Sarah understands implicitly that trauma and emotional distress often profoundly impact the entire family unit, and she skillfully guides families through collaborative, animal-based tasks that immediately reveal underlying relational dynamics and create powerful opportunities for positive, observed interaction in a low-stress, non-judgmental environment. She possesses a natural, deep ability to quickly connect with clients of all ages and backgrounds, using her gentle, encouraging, and highly attuned style to create immediate rapport and foundational trust with individuals who may have struggled to form connections in the past. Sarah’s commitment to holistic wellness means she actively collaborates with school counselors, pediatricians, and outside therapists to ensure our animal-assisted interventions are integrated seamlessly with the client’s broader treatment plan, maximizing long-term success, reducing fragmentation of care, and providing continuous support across multiple settings.

David “Mac” McMillan, Veteran Outreach & Animal Care Specialist

David “Mac” McMillan is a highly respected and deeply valued member of the Healing Hearts with Hooves team, bringing a wealth of unique life experience as a retired decorated Navy veteran and a certified master farrier with decades of intensive, practical experience caring for large animals. His deep, authentic understanding of the military culture, the challenges of transition, and the specific emotional struggles faced by returning service members makes him uniquely and exceptionally qualified to lead and facilitate our dedicated veteran and first responder therapeutic programs. Mac approaches his role with an essential combination of quiet strength, grounded wisdom, and genuine empathy, skillfully using his natural leadership skills to create a structured yet profoundly supportive environment where veterans feel immediately safe, respected, and authorized to engage in non-judgmental, powerful therapeutic work alongside the horses. In addition to his primary programmatic role, Mac personally oversees the daily physical care, continuous training reinforcement, and ongoing health assessments for our equine partners, ensuring their physical soundness and emotional well-being are always maintained at the highest possible standard. His hands-on, direct, and reliably consistent approach often resonates powerfully with veteran clients, providing a grounded, reliable, and authentic presence that swiftly facilitates trust and encourages emotional vulnerability in a way that is incredibly healing and effective for addressing complex trauma and operational stress.

Our Work

Integrating Mind, Body, and Spirit Through Animal Partnership

Education & Learning

Mastering Life Skills in a Natural Classroom

Our educational and learning work focuses intensely on utilizing the dynamic, rich environment of the working ranch to teach complex, abstract life skills in a concrete, hands-on, and highly experiential manner that ensures deep, lasting retention and easy transference to real-world scenarios. For many of our clients, particularly those with neurodevelopmental differences or historical negative classroom experiences, the inherent pressure of a traditional instructional environment can severely hinder learning and emotional absorption, but our natural setting removes this significant barrier, allowing the engaging, animal-based task to become the immediate and primary focus, while the underlying, critical life lesson—such as effective problem-solving, strategic planning, task initiation, and delegation—is absorbed naturally and indirectly without conscious pressure. For instance, a group of self-identified anxious adolescents tasked with collaboratively creating a safe, makeshift obstacle for a miniature pony must quickly negotiate roles, share innovative ideas, constructively manage disagreements under pressure, and precisely execute a collective plan under the subtle, watchful supervision of a therapist who then skillfully facilitates reflection on the group dynamics and their communication effectiveness. We place a high emphasis on sophisticated observational learning, where clients learn to accurately interpret the highly nuanced, subtle body language of our animals, skills which immediately translate into better interpretation of human social cues and profoundly improved understanding of non-verbal communication in their relationships, making our educational model uniquely suited for individuals struggling with social, developmental, and relational learning challenges.

Play & Exploration

Fostering Creativity and Overcoming Fear in the Arena

The crucial and often beautifully underestimated element of intentional play is a significant component of our therapeutic work, providing a safe, necessary, and low-stakes environment for clients to explore boundaries, practice spontaneity, and successfully process complex, internalized emotions through movement, creativity, and guided imaginative interaction. Play at Healing Hearts with Hooves frequently involves imaginative, structured games with the animal partners, such as collaboratively guiding a horse through a “magical protection circle” or creating a safe-haven “island” for a gentle goat using only ropes and cones, which actively encourages narrative building, emotional projection, and the externalization of often complicated internal conflicts, allowing the therapist to gain deep, non-verbal insight into the client’s internal landscape and coping strategies. This environment of guided, joyful exploration helps clients to confidently step outside their comfort zones and challenge self-imposed limitations without the debilitating fear of explicit failure or critical judgment, facilitating a powerful process of “re-scripting” traumatic or challenging life narratives by creating new, positive, and enduring memories of mastery, partnership, and shared fun. We consistently find that the simple, powerful act of playful, focused interaction significantly reduces levels of stress hormones, drastically increases feelings of genuine connection and well-being, and effectively opens the door to deeper, more intensive therapeutic work by establishing a foundational relationship built on authentic trust, mutual respect, and shared, honest joy between the client and their dedicated animal partner, proving conclusively that sometimes, the most profound and lasting healing happens through laughter and gentle, guided fun.

Social & Emotional Development

Cultivating Empathy, Boundaries, and Self-Regulation

A significant and clinically essential portion of our therapeutic work is intensely dedicated to the critical, foundational tasks of social and emotional development, skills that are often severely compromised by the experience of trauma, chronic anxiety, or various neurodevelopmental differences. Our professional therapy animals excel in this crucial area by instinctively holding up a perfect, unbiased, and completely honest mirror to the client’s internal emotional state without question or filter. If a client approaches a horse with suppressed aggression, uncontrolled fear, or hidden anxiety, the horse will immediately move away, refuse to engage, or display clear signs of distress, instantly signaling that the client’s internal emotional state is fundamentally and negatively affecting the relationship and the task at hand. This powerful, tangible, and immediate consequence actively motivates the client to practice necessary self-regulation techniques, learning to employ conscious breathing, grounded posture, and mindfulness exercises to achieve a required calm, grounded demeanor, which immediately and reliably results in the animal’s willing cooperation and positive response. Furthermore, interactions naturally, effortlessly teach the foundational importance of boundaries—the client quickly learns that respecting the animal’s space, comfort, and physical needs is absolutely essential for a positive, successful interaction, a critical lesson that translates directly to establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries in their personal human relationships, all while the profound, unconditional nature of the animal’s gentle presence fosters an immediate sense of profound empathy, genuine connection, and reciprocal trust.

Programs/Services

Specialized Programs Designed for Maximum Impact

Healing Hearts with Hooves proudly offers distinct, carefully designed therapeutic pathways that are meticulously tailored to the developmental, cognitive, and emotional needs of diverse age groups, ensuring that the intervention is always contextually appropriate, highly engaging, and maximally effective for the individual. Our Early Childhood Program (Ages 4-7) thoughtfully utilizes our miniature horses and donkeys in playful, carefully supervised, sensory-rich sessions focused on developing fundamental motor skills, basic emotional literacy, and essential frustration tolerance, providing a gentle, non-intimidating introduction to therapeutic concepts through fun and imagination. The Children & Adolescent Program (Ages 8-17) is designed to specifically address prevalent issues like chronic anxiety, complex social challenges, and building positive self-esteem through structured groundwork, advanced communication exercises, and group problem-solving tasks, actively helping youth to navigate the intense complexities of identity formation and peer pressure. Our comprehensive Adult Wellness Programs (Ages 18+) focus on critical areas such as acute stress reduction, complex trauma recovery, grief processing, and building functional, healthy relationship skills, often incorporating the powerful, grounding, and physically present nature of our full-sized therapy horses to facilitate deep processing and regulation. Finally, our highly effective Specialized Programs, including those dedicated to veterans, first responders, and individuals on the autism spectrum, are meticulously customized by our clinical directors to directly address unique professional and clinical challenges, utilizing targeted animal interaction to achieve specific, measurable therapeutic goals, confirming our complete commitment to comprehensive, holistic care across the entire human lifespan.

Community & Engagement

Strengthening Bonds Within and Beyond the Ranch

At Healing Hearts with Hooves, we profoundly recognize that the greatest, most enduring, and most sustainable healing ultimately happens within the context of the family unit and the client’s home environment, which is precisely why comprehensive family involvement is not just passively encouraged, but strategically and intentionally woven into the very fabric of our therapeutic approach, particularly for children and adolescents. We frequently offer specialized co-facilitated sessions where immediate family members work cooperatively with the animals on shared behavioral or communication goals, allowing them to visibly observe how their individual communication patterns, emotional states, and non-verbal cues directly affect their ability to work cooperatively as a unit, providing immediate, powerful opportunities for change that are undeniable. Our skilled therapists provide parents with tailored insights and practical tools derived directly from the animal interactions, empowering them to consistently reinforce positive behaviors, maintain emotional regulation, and sustain the relational shifts learned in the arena when they return home. Furthermore, we host regular parent education workshops focused on topics like effective, compassionate limit-setting and non-violent, empathetic communication, consciously transforming parents from passive observers into active, skilled partners in their child’s or loved one’s therapeutic journey. This continuous, integrated involvement ensures that the powerful learning that happens at the ranch is transferred, sustained, and successfully replicated in the daily life of the family, maximizing the investment in long-term wellness and profound relational health.

Testionials

Real Stories of Transformation and Connection

  • 1: “Before coming to Healing Hearts with Hooves, our sensitive daughter, Emily, struggled immensely with severe, debilitating social anxiety that made school, birthday parties, and even family gatherings a constant, terrifying battle for her and our whole family. The idea of traditional talk therapy felt sterile and overwhelming for her highly creative mind, but the moment she met Patches, the patient therapy horse, everything profoundly changed for the better. Patches’ gentle, non-judgmental, and constant presence gave Emily a perfectly safe space to practice difficult communication skills, master self-regulation, and practice essential boundary setting without the crushing pressure of human judgment or expectation. The therapists here are absolute angels; they didn’t just tell her what to do, they skillfully helped her feel what was right by watching Patches’ honest, non-verbal reaction to her energy. Within six months of consistent weekly sessions, Emily is confidently initiating conversations with her peers, she successfully volunteered to give a presentation at school, and the constant, painful knot of anxiety in her stomach is gone. This place didn’t just treat her anxiety; it gave her a voice, genuine self-belief, and a confidence in herself that we had never seen before, and for that, we will be eternally grateful for this truly transformative experience that has forever changed our family’s dynamic for the better.”
    • — Sarah P., Parent of Child (Age 10-12 Group)
  • 2: “I am a retired combat veteran who had been silently struggling for years with chronic sleep disturbances, debilitating hyper-vigilance, and an emotional inability to connect authentically with my wife and kids after returning home from active duty. My wife, bless her heart, encouraged me repeatedly to try the specialized Veteran Outreach Program at HHWH, and honestly, I was profoundly skeptical at first, thinking it was just a nice farm trip or a simple distraction. But working with the massive horses on the ground during those controlled therapeutic tasks was intense, immediately grounding, and instantly revealing. The sheer size, strength, and sensitivity of the horse demands that you be completely present, calm, and deliberate, forcing me to regulate my breathing, my anxious thoughts, and my fear in real-time to earn their respect and cooperation, which was the most powerful lesson in emotional control and leadership I’ve ever had in or out of the service. Mac and the clinical team instantly understood the military mindset and the pain of moral injury, providing necessary structure and unwavering respect while expertly guiding me through activities that taught me to trust again—both myself and the honest animal in front of me. I feel deeply grounded and genuinely peaceful for the first time in years, my sudden anger outbursts are now minimal, and I’ve successfully started having real, meaningful conversations with my kids again. Healing Hearts with Hooves gave me back my peace, and more importantly, it helped me successfully find my way back home to my family.”
    • — David M., Adult Wellness Program (Veteran)
  • 3: “Our beautiful son, Leo, is on the autism spectrum, and while he is highly intelligent and loving, reciprocal communication, emotional sharing, and consistent eye contact have always been significant, persistent challenges, frequently leading to frustrating, overwhelming meltdowns when expectations were unclear. The highly recommended program at Healing Hearts with Hooves was suggested to us by his occupational therapist, and it has undeniably been the single most effective, gentle intervention we’ve ever tried for him. They thoughtfully paired Leo with Lily, the famously gentle miniature donkey, who has this amazing, quiet, and consistent way of demanding attention and intentionality without ever being overwhelming or unpredictable. Lily’s subtle, non-verbal reactions and head nudges taught Leo about the critical importance of non-verbal cues and social communication in a way that flashcards or social stories never fully could, and the repetitive, comforting, sensory-rich routine of meticulously grooming her became a powerful, intrinsic self-soothing and grounding tool for him. His frustration-driven meltdowns have dropped drastically and measurably, and his school therapist has noted a significant, positive improvement in his ability to maintain steady eye contact and spontaneously engage in simple, back-and-forth conversations, all thanks to the unwavering patience, expertise, and wisdom of the staff and his incredible furry little therapist, Lily. The ranch environment is so consistently calm, accepting, and structured that he is finally thriving socially, not just academically, and his confidence has soared.”
    • — Jessica A., Parent of Child (Ages 4-7 Group)
  • 4: “As a busy, highly driven executive, my professional stress levels were completely through the roof, leading to debilitating burnout, chronic fatigue, and increasingly poor decision-making capacity at work and at home. I participated in a special corporate leadership workshop at HHWH focused specifically on authentic non-verbal communication and effective team dynamics, and it was a profound, professional revelation. Being paired on the ground with a massive, powerful horse and quickly realizing I couldn’t move it even one single step through aggression, force, or frustration, but only through calm, centered, assertive, and unwavering intention, was the most powerful management lesson I have ever received that I immediately brought back to the boardroom and my personal life. The animal perfectly mirrored my hidden anxiety and overthinking, forcing me to confront my own lack of genuine presence and my tendency to try to control everything, which was exhausting me. I honestly learned more about authentic, effective leadership and the essential art of managing my internal emotional state in a single transformative afternoon at the ranch than I have in years of expensive seminars and professional coaching. The professionalism, ethical rigor, and clinical depth of Dr. Reed and the entire team is top-tier, blending serious therapeutic depth with a truly unique, accessible, and practical application. I highly and unreservedly recommend their programs for any individual or organization urgently seeking authentic personal development, emotional mastery, and profound, sustainable stress relief.”
    • — Robert K., Adult Wellness Program (Corporate Client)
  • 5: “The specialized family sessions here literally saved our deeply strained relationship with our quiet, isolated teenage son, Ben, whom we felt we were quickly losing. He had completely emotionally shut down after a particularly difficult school year and a social setback, and all we seemed to do at home was argue in frustrating cycles that went nowhere. The therapist, Sarah, had us all work together as a unit to guide a horse through a simple ground maze, and the exercise immediately and undeniably exposed our broken, ineffective communication—my husband was being too demanding, I was too passively enabling, and Ben was completely emotionally disengaged and resistant to all of us. Seeing the horse’s honest, direct reaction to our poor teamwork made the problem undeniable and visible, but also clearly fixable, which was a huge relief. Sarah helped us practice and integrate new, healthier ways of communicating right there in the arena, and for the first time in months, we genuinely felt like a functional, supportive team again, connecting through the shared responsibility of caring for and guiding the horse together. It wasn’t about blame or dredging up the past; it was about genuine, compassionate, present-moment change and collaboration. We still regularly use the ‘calm breath’ technique we all learned here whenever we feel tension rising at home, and our family connection is stronger, more honest, and healthier than it has ever been, all thanks to the honest mirror, gentle guidance, and profound teaching provided by the animals and the caring team.”
    • — Catherine L., Parent of Adolescent (Ages 13-17 Group)

Our volunteer

Your Time and Heart Fuel Our Mission

Why Volunteer

Join a Community Dedicated to Compassionate Change

Volunteering at Healing Hearts with Hooves offers a truly unique, profoundly rewarding, and essential opportunity to directly contribute to the emotional and mental well-being of our community while developing deep, fulfilling, and non-verbal relationships with our incredible, gentle animal team. Our dedicated volunteers are the essential lifeblood of our entire operation, providing the foundational, critical support that allows our professional, clinical staff to focus entirely and without distraction on the intensive therapeutic delivery to clients. Beyond the necessary practical tasks of running a ranch, serving as a volunteer is an unparalleled opportunity for deep personal growth, self-reflection, and professional networking; you will consistently spend quality time in a deeply peaceful, natural environment, practice intentional mindfulness, patience, and consistency while working with our gentle giants and lovable minis, and become an integral, supportive part of countless client success stories and emotional breakthroughs. We are a tightly knit, highly supportive, and deeply appreciative community that sincerely values every contribution of time and energy, whether you have extensive, decades-long animal experience or are simply driven by an unwavering passion for helping others and supporting a meaningful cause. You will receive comprehensive, hands-on training in all our safety protocols and animal handling techniques from our Program Manager, ensuring you are consistently comfortable, safe, and confident in your specific role, all while gaining valuable practical experience in the growing, vital field of animal-assisted intervention and making a genuine, tangible, and profound impact in the lives of both our human clients and our cherished animal co-facilitators, fully embodying the spirit of care.

Ways to Help

Diverse Roles to Match Your Skills and Schedule

We thoughtfully offer a wide variety of dedicated volunteer roles designed to appropriately accommodate different existing skill sets, physical capabilities, and varied time commitments, ensuring that every person who wishes to generously help and support our mission can find a profoundly meaningful and comfortable place within our team structure. Our most consistently critical and necessary roles include Animal Care Assistants, who are responsible for the daily, essential tasks such as meticulously cleaning stalls, preparing precise feed rations, detailed grooming, exercising, and maintaining the impeccable health, hydration, and comfort of our animals, ensuring their constant readiness for sessions. For those individuals with strong organizational skills, detail orientation, or experience in professional settings, our Program Support Volunteers assist with client intake scheduling, accurately preparing therapeutic materials for sessions, and light administrative tasks, all of which are absolutely vital for the smooth and efficient running of our intensive therapeutic programs and managing the client pipeline. Our Event and Outreach Team supports our essential fundraising and community awareness efforts, helping with logistical planning, setting up event spaces at the ranch, and staffing information booths at local fairs to warmly share our unique mission and success stories with the broader public. We are happy to discuss flexible scheduling options, including consistent weekday mornings, mid-week afternoons, and some limited weekend shifts, and we sincerely welcome both long-term, weekly commitments and individuals seeking short-term service projects, emphasizing that every single hour dedicated by a volunteer makes a direct, powerful, and measurable positive difference in the lives we serve.

Impact of Volunteering

Directly Facilitating Emotional Breakthroughs

The essential, daily impact of a dedicated volunteer at Healing Hearts with Hooves extends far beyond the readily observable, physical tasks of cleaning stalls or accurately setting up cones in the arena; your quiet dedication, consistent effort, and compassionate presence directly facilitates the critical emotional breakthroughs of our clients and sustains the vital well-being of our animal partners. By ensuring that our entire facility is consistently safe, clean, peaceful, and welcoming, you actively create the optimal, low-stress environment absolutely necessary for vulnerable clients to feel safe enough to relax, drop their defenses, and open up honestly to the intensive therapeutic process. By grooming, exercising, and loving our animals, you ensure they are calm, trusting, physically sound, and ready to immediately serve as gentle, effective, and reliable co-facilitators in their sessions, which directly and critically impacts the quality, depth, and success of the client’s therapeutic outcome and overall experience. Many of our long-term volunteers report feeling a powerful, unmatched sense of genuine purpose and deep connection, witnessing firsthand the transformative moment a struggling child smiles genuinely for the first time in months or when a combat veteran finds a moment of quiet, internal peace after years of debilitating struggle and hyper-vigilance. Your generous time and dedicated heart are not merely filling a gap in labor; they are a direct, active, and essential investment in compassion, resilience, profound connection, and community well-being that transforms lives within our region, embodying the very true spirit and mission of Healing Hearts with Hooves in all you do.

Frequently asked questions

Clarity and Confidence in Our Therapeutic Process

How exactly does the enrollment process for therapeutic sessions work, and what is the typical commitment required for a new individual to begin seeing results?

The enrollment process at Healing Hearts with Hooves is designed to be highly supportive, confidential, and comprehensive, beginning with an essential initial phone consultation where we can briefly discuss the client’s primary needs, current challenges, and initial goals, allowing us to gauge program suitability. Following this successful consultation, we schedule a formal, in-depth intake assessment with our Clinical Director, Dr. Reed, which allows us to gather detailed clinical and background information, establish clear, measurable therapeutic goals, and carefully determine the optimal program fit and the most beneficial animal pairing based on the client’s specific emotional and physical needs, ensuring the best start possible. While the length of the required commitment is naturally tailored to each individual and their unique goals, we typically recommend a minimum commitment of 8 to 12 weekly, one-hour sessions to allow sufficient time for the client to build trust and rapport with both the animal and the therapist, ensuring they can move past initial emotional defenses and begin to successfully integrate the powerful learning and emotional shifts into their daily lives and relationships, with the clear option to continue services based on ongoing, positive clinical progress and continuous assessment reviewed with the clinical team.

What rigorous safety protocols and measures are consistently in place to protect clients, staff, and the invaluable therapy animals during every session conducted on the ranch?

Safety is the absolute highest, non-negotiable priority at Healing Hearts with Hooves, a guiding principle that informs all our decisions regarding meticulous facility management, careful animal selection and training, and the precise structure of every therapeutic session. All client activities are strictly non-ridden and conducted exclusively on the ground, and are closely supervised at all times by a minimum of one certified equine or animal specialist and one licensed mental health professional, ensuring there is always a dual layer of expert oversight, specialized knowledge, and ethical accountability present to manage both animal behavior and therapeutic processing. Our facility is proactively and meticulously maintained daily to eliminate all environmental hazards and ensure impeccable cleanliness, and every animal is subjected to a stringent, ongoing health screening, continuous behavioral assessment, and advanced positive reinforcement training process to ensure they possess the calmest, most reliable, and most engaging temperament necessary for effective therapeutic work without exception. Crucially, clients are always thoroughly instructed in safe handling and appropriate interaction techniques before any direct contact is permitted, and we enforce a strict policy that clients are never left alone with an animal without a trained staff member present, guaranteeing a consistently physically and emotionally secure environment for everyone involved in the therapeutic process, from start to finish.

Is this therapy primarily focused on teaching riding skills or horsemanship, or is there a specific psychological curriculum guiding the activities and sessions you offer?

We want to be unequivocally clear and transparent that Healing Hearts with Hooves focuses entirely and exclusively on ground-based, animal-assisted psychotherapy and experiential learning, and our programs are explicitly not centered around teaching riding instruction, general horsemanship, or animal skills, although clients naturally develop basic handling skills through their work. Our entire curriculum is expertly structured around the proprietary HHWH Foundational Skills Framework, which integrates core principles from established, evidence-based psychotherapeutic models, including trauma-informed care, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and intensive experiential learning methodologies, ensuring clinical rigor. The gentle animals serve as highly sensitive co-facilitators, providing crucial, immediate, non-verbal emotional feedback that our licensed therapists use to process core clinical issues such as effective communication, healthy boundary setting, emotional regulation, and self-esteem. The therapeutic activities themselves, such as mindfully leading a horse through a challenging path or cooperative grooming, are carefully chosen metaphors explicitly designed to elicit specific emotional responses and provide tangible, non-verbal lessons that are immediately processed, reflected upon, and explicitly connected back to the client’s established therapeutic goals and real-world challenges during the required processing time with the therapist.

Are meals or snacks provided for clients, and what are the typical operating hours of the facility for scheduling sessions?

As a specialized therapeutic service provider focused on non-medical, ground-based sessions, Healing Hearts with Hooves does not provide regular meals or snacks, and clients are strongly advised to bring their own refillable water bottles and to eat a nourishing, grounding meal prior to their scheduled therapeutic session, as the experiential work can be physically, cognitively, and emotionally engaging and requires energy. Our typical operating hours for client sessions are Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with limited, highly sought-after availability on select Saturdays to best accommodate the schedules of working adults and families, though these weekend slots typically fill very quickly due to high demand. We strongly encourage prospective and current clients to contact our dedicated Program Manager, Mark Chen, via email at info@hhwh.click to inquire about specific availability for individual or group sessions, noting that our professional schedule is meticulously designed to optimize the therapeutic performance and ensure the exemplary welfare and consistent rest of our animal partners, who work tirelessly to support our clients’ healing journeys.

How much are parents or guardians typically involved in the therapeutic process, and what is their precise role during a client’s scheduled session?

Parent and guardian involvement is a highly valued, actively encouraged, and often clinically crucial component of the success of our therapeutic programs, particularly for all children and adolescents, though the specific nature of the involvement is carefully and intentionally managed by the therapist to align precisely with the established therapeutic goals and the client’s need for independence and privacy. For many individual sessions, parents are invited to observe discreetly from a designated viewing distance, which allows the client and the animal to form an independent, safe working relationship free from the client’s perceived or unconscious need to perform for or manage their parent’s emotions and expectations, facilitating better therapeutic focus. However, we regularly schedule dedicated family sessions where the parent actively participates alongside the client and the animal, guided by the therapist to deliberately practice and integrate new communication techniques and build healthier relational patterns through shared tasks. The therapist always provides parents with brief, focused, and private feedback and practical ‘homework’ exercises after individual sessions, providing essential tools to compassionately support and reinforce the therapeutic gains and emotional regulation skills at home, which ensures that the healing extends far beyond the physical boundaries of the ranch and into daily life.

What is the cost structure for your therapeutic programs, and do you accept direct insurance payments or offer any kind of financial assistance for families in need?

The precise cost of our professional therapeutic services varies depending on the specific program intensity, whether it is an individual one-on-one session, a specialized group workshop, or a focused family intervention, and the full, current details of our fee structure are always provided with complete transparency during the initial phone consultation before any commitment is required. While we operate as a private, specialized therapeutic organization and cannot guarantee coverage, our services often fall under the category of out-of-network mental health benefits, and we can readily provide the necessary itemized documentation, known as a Superbill, for clients to submit directly to their private insurance provider for potential reimbursement, though we do not handle direct billing to insurance companies or managed care organizations ourselves. Crucially, we are deeply committed to ensuring therapeutic accessibility and proudly offer a limited number of need-based scholarships and a flexible fee structure for qualified individuals and families through our dedicated Hearts for Hooves Fund, which is supported solely by our generous donors and successful fundraising events, strongly encouraging all interested families to inquire openly about financial assistance options during their required initial intake and consultation process.

Contact Us

Your Journey to Healing Starts Here

We fully understand and respect that taking the first, often significant step towards seeking therapeutic support can be a profound and vulnerable moment, and our entire compassionate team is wholeheartedly committed to making this initial connection as easy, informative, and comfortable as possible for you and your family, offering multiple direct avenues for you to reach us based entirely on your personal preference. For the most detailed, reliable, and prompt professional response regarding all program inquiries, specific scheduling requests, or any clinical questions, we highly recommend contacting us directly via our dedicated organizational email address, info@hhwh.click, where our diligent Program Manager, Mark Chen, personally monitors and responds to all inquiries with the utmost care, confidentiality, and efficiency, typically within a single business day. If you prefer or require to speak directly to a staff member, our office phone line is closely monitored during our standard, published operating hours of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday, and we warmly welcome your call for immediate, brief questions or to schedule your initial consultation; however, please understand that during active, intensive therapy sessions with clients and animals, we may not be able to answer immediately, but if you leave a detailed, confidential message, we promise to return your call as soon as we are professionally able to step away from the animals and our clients and safely do so.

Join Us

Invest Your Professional Passion in a Life-Changing Mission

Healing Hearts with Hooves is a continuously growing, highly dynamic organization constantly seeking passionate, deeply qualified professionals who are unwaveringly committed to the highest ethical and clinical standards of therapeutic excellence and the lifelong welfare of our animal co-facilitators, offering profoundly rewarding career opportunities in various specialized therapeutic and administrative fields. We frequently look to fill critical roles such as Licensed Mental Health Professionals (LCSW, LMHC, Ph.D.) who are deeply interested in integrating ethical, trauma-informed animal-assisted intervention into their existing practice, highly skilled Certified Equine Specialists with extensive practical experience in safe, ground-based activities and advanced animal behavior, and experienced Program Management Staff who possess strong organizational skills, meticulous attention to detail, and a deep, authentic commitment to the success of our mission. We fundamentally believe in continuous professional development, ethical cross-training, and advanced supervision, ensuring our dedicated team members have consistent access to specialized workshops, conferences, and certifications in the latest trauma-informed, experiential therapeutic techniques, and ethical animal handling protocols. If you possess a unique, powerful blend of clinical expertise, a profound, non-negotiable respect for the animal kingdom, and a deep desire to actively facilitate genuine, lasting healing in others, we warmly encourage you to explore joining our dedicated, collaborative, and mission-driven team that is actively shaping the future of mental wellness and relational health in the entire Bradenton community.