[image description: a bright lighthouse shines light into a dark, cloudy sky over the shoreline.]

WILD3R - The Wisconsin Institute for Leadership Development through Equine Retreats, Ecological Reciprocity, and Early Relationships

At Natural Wisdom Counseling LLC, we recognize that the mental health industrial complex is rooted in systemic oppression and depends on inequitable access to resources (including formal education and trainings). As a result, we have created WILD3R. WILD3R is a training institute for people who are or want to be leaders — leaders of their families, their communities, their departments, their programs.

Why leadership development rather than professional development for counselors or coaches? Because we believe that the world doesn’t need more therapists, it needs more leaders.

At WILD3R, leaders lean into the lessons of nature and horses in order to strengthen their capacities to tolerate distress, attune to others and provide co-regulation, engage in self-reflective practices and accountability, and mobilize the power of healthy relationships.

equine apprenticeships

The first program of WILD3R has been to provide unpaid therapeutic equine apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are currently limited to a small number of people and focus on cultivating therapeutic relational skills.

Tier 1: Trauma-Informed Horse Handler
-minimum of 50 hours
-verbal and practical assessments
-self-evaluations

Tier 2: Therapeutic Equine Specialist
-minimum of 140 hours
-verbal and practical assessments
-self-evaluations

Tier 3: Therapeutic Equine Coach (or Therapeutic Equine Psychotherapist for providers who are Licensed Mental Health Professionals)
-minimum of 260 hours
-verbal and practical assessments
-self-evaluations

[image description: close-up photo of a bay horse from behind its mane. Strands of the dark black mane in the center of the photo reveal a portion of the brown face of the horse looking back towards the camera.]

pillars of WILD3r

The 3 ER’s: Equine Retreats, Ecological Reciprocity, and Early Relationships.

At WILD3R, we are providing leadership development that focuses on the three pillars that influenced the creation of our name.

Equine Retreats: Looking for an immersive program that highlights the power of the horse in understanding leadership? Our equine retreats emphasize 1-on-1 leadership, self-awareness in relationships, understanding power dynamics, and honoring sentience.

Ecological Reciprocity: Looking to partner with the rhythms of nature or to understand how healing in humans is intimately tied to the health of the Earth? Our nature-based leadership development programming emphasizes interdependence and interconnectivity, reciprocal relationships, metaphors of nature, deep listening, and the transpersonal or spiritual experiences of leadership.

Early Relationships: Wondering about the applications of nature and horses in the field of Infant, Early Childhood, and Family Mental Health? One of the most powerful times to interrupt intergenerational patterns of trauma and oppression is through the power of the parent-child relationship. Our trainings provide additional supports and reflective practices for doulas, midwives, childcare providers, and early childhood educators in order to create healthier families and communities.