Experiences of an equine-facilitated psychotherapeutic intervention: An IPA study

The Department of Health Long Term Plan (DoH, 2018) called for a wider range of evidence based programmes designed to protect and promote children and young people's (CYP) emotional well-being and mental health

Research exploring Animal Facilitated Learning and Therapeutic interventions reported improvements in the emotional wellbeing of CYP.

This study explored the experiences of two young people (YP) attending an Equine Facilitated Psychotherapeutic (EFP) intervention, the professionals who facilitated the intervention, school staff where the YP were students and the YP's parents.

Research questions considered how the participants experienced and made sense of the EFP intervention.

The 'voice' of the YP was privileged and an in-depth exploration of their experiences is presented.

Two YP (aged 14-15) attending a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU), two Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association (EAGALA) trained professionals, a member of the PRU staff and two parents agreed to participate.

Qualitative methodology was employed with a 'Mosaic' approach to gather data from the two young people.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted for the adult participants.

Attachment and affect regulation theories were considered as a psychological framework to understand and situate the findings.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed, constructing both idiographic accounts, as well as tri-angulating data both within and across groups providing a multiperspectival account.

Three super-ordinate themes were identified across the groups: developing relationships, self-efficacy and environment.

The findings suggested that attachment and affect regulations theoretical perspectives are an appropriate framework to guide and inform EFP practice.

The findings reported that for two YP with complex social and emotional needs, who did not respond to traditional counselling or mentoring approaches, engaged with the intervention.

Both YP demonstrated improved social communication and interaction skills. Implications for EPs include the exploration of Equine Facilitated Interventions to support CYP with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs.