The Equine Invitation – A Deep dive into Practice Frameworks and Scaffolding Safety.

Kylie Peters (psychologist, family therapist, director of Groundwork Therapy) has been

facilitating equine therapy and learning workshops as a teacher, supervisor and practitioner across Australia for the past 20 years. Groundwork Therapy is built on the Invitational approach framework where horses are profound and powerful co-teachers of this work. The model is a process-driven systemic experiential learning framework for helping people increase their awareness and to learn how to safely attend to themselves and others in the present moment.

This presentation looks through a systemic lens at a concept map developed by Groundwork Therapy as a proposed reflective practice tool kit to help practitioners become more aware of their practice underpinnings and frameworks to best support reflective practice.

Asking questions of concepts that the practitioner constantly needs to make choices about. Such as; How do you view the horse? How do you view nature? How do you view the client? How do you view yourself and your role? How do you view what is actually happening in front of you? What is your ‘why’ that drives what you are doing in a session? How are you going to set up your safety container? How will you build safety in the session?

When we can widen our lens of understanding to extend past what is happening in front of us, to include what is happening inside of us and how these things are interacting together we are in a better position to create an experience of safety.

This presentation looks at centering the Practitioner and the impact of who we are, how we are and what our why is – impacting what we are actually doing. This presentation is for anyone working with people, out-doors, in the office, in nature, with equine.

As Practitioners, by learning greater self-awareness and accountability we can continue to advocate for lifting the bar on safety in this field, we have an opportunity to give both horses and humans a better deal, where safety is never compromised in pursuit of the magical moment of connection. And hopefully contribute to a paradigm shift where feeling safe becomes the experience.