Making Every Session Count: Practical Strategies for Therapists Using Hippotherapy Part-Time

Many therapists incorporate hippotherapy into their practice only once or twice per week, often alongside other professional and personal responsibilities. This part-time involvement brings unique challenges such as making each session clinically impactful, managing clients and administrative demands efficiently, and balancing professional work with personal responsibilities. This presentation will focus on practical strategies in three areas: treatment, administrative, and lifestyle. Clinically, participants will learn how to maximize each session by layering equine movement with purposeful sensory input, maximizing movement value and integrating therapeutic activities to support client outcomes. Administratively, simple business tools for attracting, scheduling, and communicating with clients will be introduced, designed for therapists who operate at a smaller scale. Finally, lifestyle considerations will be discussed, offering ways to sustain long-term involvement in hippotherapy without having your own facility. This session emphasizes concrete, ready-to-use tools that participants can immediately integrate into their practice, ensuring that every session truly counts—for clients, therapists, and therapy horses alike.

Learning Objectives:

1. Develop a personalized plan to enhance session quality, client communication, and therapist sustainability.

2. Identify at least three ways to integrate sensory, auditory, or visual input alongside equine movement to increase treatment impact.

3. Develop a sustainability plan that integrates treatment effectiveness, business efficiency, and lifestyle balance to support long-term involvement in hippotherapy.