Inspire Connections

27/08/2026

🌟🌟🌟We are super excited to be heading to this conference next month along with Dr Megan Lang to share the Learning With Horses Research and our incredible work here at Inspire 🌟🌟🌟

🌿 Presenter Spotlight: Karina Harback

🐴 How can we create equine-assisted environments where children feel safe enough to regulate, connect and learn – particularly when traditional educational settings may not always meet their needs?

At EATA’s 10th Anniversary Conference this September, Equine Facilitated Learning Practitioner and educator Karina Harback will explore how intentional program design can help create safer, more responsive and inclusive environments for children and young people.

Together with University of Tasmania Research Fellow Dr Megan Lang, Karina will present Learning With Horses: Designing for Safety, Connection and Reflective Practice.

🔎 Karina will share insights from the Learning with Horses research partnership between Inspire Connections and the Peter Underwood Centre at the University of Tasmania.

The workshop will explore how elements such as pacing, predictability, emotional safety and relational attunement can support regulation, engagement and connection – not only for children who may struggle within traditional educational settings, but also for the adults supporting them.

🌱 The workshop will also consider the challenges of transferring learning from equine-assisted environments back into school and community contexts, particularly where institutional structures may unintentionally limit opportunities for regulation, autonomy or relational safety.

👩‍🏫 Karina brings 27 years of experience as a primary school educator and is the Founder and Director of Inspire Connections, an equine-facilitated learning program in Tasmania.

Her work brings together her understanding of child development and education with equine-facilitated approaches and trauma-informed principles.

Through Inspire Connections, Karina has developed and led programs supporting children, educators and communities, particularly those experiencing challenges within traditional systems.

💛 For anyone who works alongside children, this workshop offers a great opportunity to consider how the environments we create can become an important part of supporting safety and meaningful learning.

Limited tickets remain: https://events.humanitix.com/equine-assisted-therapy-australia-conference

27/08/2026

Today we had the amazing opportunity to spend time with some superstars.🌟

High school students and staff showing up with brave hearts 💕

With the help of Groundwork Therapy horse cards, each person paused, checked in with themselves, and chose the horse they felt drawn to 🐴

There's something powerful about those quiet moments of noticing 🌿

honest
curious
connections

Amazing team work 👏 outside in the sunshine 🌞 with amazing young people and the adults who support them.

Grateful for every heart in the circle today. 🐴💚

Noticing what we are noticing.

25/08/2026

A reminder to find a way to shake off the day when we need to....

Thanks Beauty ✨️🐴💕

22/08/2026

👏🐴🌟🌿

22/08/2026

Slowing down to notice 🐴🍃

Yesterday's session was about slowing down.

We started by simply watching.

An ear turning toward us. Eyes softening. A breath let out. No rush to "do" anything, just time and space for horses to notice us, and for us to notice them.

The staff members were supported by the students, learning together what it feels like to move with awareness.

We took this deliberate focus to the arena, walking to a drum beat, stopping at each letter to find a word, building affirmations into our steps and into each other.

Then we checked our skills list, celebrating what we achieved and reflecting on what the horses did well, and what we did well.

Slow, deliberate, connected. 🌿

💖👏 🌟

21/08/2026

🌟🌟Still a couple of spaces left🌟🌟

Here in Tassie Inspire Connections Broadmarsh 🌿

Delicious morning tea and lunch provided 🤩

Don't miss this amazing opportunity 🐴✨️

Email [email protected] to book in!

If you're feeling the pull to deepen your practice, this is the workshop where that work actually happens.

Join Kylie Peters (Psychologist, Family Therapist) and her four-legged team for a two-day immersive workshop exploring how safety is consciously co-created within therapeutic and learning spaces - not assumed, but actively scaffolded.

Grounded in the Co-Creating Safety Practice Framework and brought to life through experiential learning with horses, this workshop invites you to look at your work differently. Not just what you do, but how you think, respond, and show up within it.

Across the two days, you'll explore:

- Consent, boundaries, and dignity of risk in practice
- Relational process, what's happening in the space, and why
- Your own responses, patterns, and blind spots
- How to build and refine a personal practice framework
- Ways to support safe, sustainable, ethically informed work
- Strengthening your reflective and reflexive capacity

This is a weight-neutral, HAES-aligned space that centres the practitioner as part of the work, with a strong focus on ethics, awareness, and clarity of practice.

You'll also walk away with practical tools to support ongoing reflection, including the Groundwork Practitioner Concept Map booklet and Reflective Practice Questions.

This workshop aligns with Psychology Board of Australia competencies 2, 3 and 7.

This is for therapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers, educators, allied health professionals, and anyone looking to expand their awareness, refine their approach, and lead with integrity in equine and outdoor practice.

21/08/2026

👍👏🌟

Staying curious takes courage. When we let go of needing to be the expert in the room, we create space to question what we know, challenge what we’ve inherited and keep doing the work better.
Spaces are still available in our remaining 2026 Professional Development workshops, see link in bio.

20/08/2026

Another amazing week 🐴✨

👏Learning with horses

👏Breathing

👏Practising

👏Step by step

👏Teamwork

There was something about watching the team stand together like this today...

A great reminder that when safety leads, regulation and connection can follow.

We are growing and strengthening skills and capacity, one moment at a time.

Grateful for another week of showing up, side by side. 🌿

17/08/2026

We love our hoof trimming days here at Inspire Connections 🐴✂️

Today our favourite farrier came through and gave the whole herd a little TLC.

Turned out the horses were pretty fussy about their pedicures, no polish required, just precision. 💅

Fun fact: Horses at Inspire Connections have their hooves trimmed every 6 - 8 weeks.

No hoof, no horse, as the old saying goes, which is exactly why regular trims are so important to us.



🐴🤩👏🌟🦶

17/08/2026

Go Team Inspire 🌟👏🤩✅️