The Business Bulletin
What the hell is Equine Facilitated Learning?
My guess is that you haven’t heard of a different approach to personal and professional development: Equine Facilitated Learning (EFL). So let’s change that!
What is EFL? EFL involves working alongside horses, as an individual or as part of a group, to learn more about yourself and develop yourself on both a personal and professional level. Horses are amazing animals who live in the moment and give us instant feedback on our behaviour, allowing us to observe the impact of our actions and explore different ways of approaching situations. No experience or knowledge of horses is involved as all work is done
can be transferred back into the
more aligned with coaching, helping
workplace or individual situation.
individuals explore how to address
The language within EFL is focused
goals, or challenges, and the horses
around ‘working with’ rather than
give a depth of understanding in
‘using’ horses, the horses are seen
these areas.
as partners in this work, they are the instrumental part of helping
others, and the facilitators are there to
How does it differ for more traditional forms of learning?
explore these things that are felt with
EFL is classed as experiential learning,
people get to a deeper level of understanding about themselves and
the horses, and what the participants can learn from it. EFL however is not therapy,
as you experience it and feel the learning in the moment, and is very different to more classroom-
on the ground, no riding is involved.
though often mistaken for Equine
based training (though they can
EFL facilitators work alongside the
Therapy which many people have a
complement each other). For
horses to help reflect on the learning
greater awareness about – instead of
example, you can learn in a classroom
that is taking place, and how this
a therapeutic focus there is a focus
about different ways to be a leader,
16 | Issue 16 – Strategy and Personal Development
