NW Hearts United

THANK YOU for opening your hearts to us and the youth who rely on our heart-centered services! We are so grateful for this opportunity to request support for our organization’s work with area youth and families. Thanks to donors like you, we feel the power that a supportive community can provide and are wholeheartedly committed to opening our hearts in every way we possibly can. 

NW Hearts United is a uniquely structured Equine Facilitated Mental Health & Wellness organization offering counseling and wellness programs throughout the Upper Puget Sound region since 2015. 

Our mission is “to inspire relationships with horses and humans that heal, connect and empower.” Licensed, certified mental health and equine facilitated professionals work collaboratively with horses to heal individuals and families, and connect community one heart at a time.  

At NW Hearts United we provide individual, group, and family equine-facilitated counseling and wellness services for youth and their families and are particularly successful with clients such as at-risk teens where conventional therapy feels too intimidating or overwhelming.

When words escape us, horses still speak to our hearts. 

The care we offer is outdoors with horses, which is interesting and engaging to those who have trouble trusting or connecting in traditional ways. Participants are amazed at how quickly they see positive changes once they start working with us. 

The emotional regulation and relationship skills that they learn with the horses are quick to generalize to other areas of their life. Our clients make progress toward their goals in a matter of weeks. This creates an “upward spiral” of feeling pride and hope about their ability to live a happier life with healthier relationships. 

NW Hearts United is responding in meaningful ways to current mental health challenges, operates from a trauma informed, neuroscientific, clinical perspective, has a unique approach to mental health and wellness, and has an extremely high efficacy rate with struggling youth.  For example, anxiety, depression, anger, and disconnection, which are prevalent and overwhelming for young people right now, are all dysregulated “fight or flight” states of being in our bodies. While they are often a result of trauma and life challenges, science now tells us that the key to shifting out of this state is to develop emotional self-regulation and resilience; interventions that allow for recognizing and managing these dysregulated states that are getting in their way now and they will need to in the future. 

Horses, by their very nature, are relational, equitable, and require our regulated selves to connect fully. Being regulated automatically shifts people to a “learning” state of mind. This is where learning new skills and ways of being starts and permanent shift happen. Every interaction we facilitate is based on this understanding; allows us to individually meet participants where they are; and focuses on teaching, learning, and practicing important life skills they have yet to experience and use. Youth benefit by feeling less depression, anxiety, and social withdrawal; and feeling happier, more confident, and more able to connect with people around them.  

"Horses change lives. They give our young people confidence and self-esteem. They provide peace and tranquility to troubled souls, they give us hope." -Toni Robinson

Contributions make it possible for us to provide our services to all who need them, regardless of income, and to be an active participant in our communities’ efforts to improve mental health. 

OPEN YOUR HEART AND CHANGE LIVES!

That’s where horses come in. The experience of interacting with a horse—a sympathetic, gentle giant who doesn’t lie, doesn’t judge, sees through pretense, and communicates without words can be powerfully transformative for helping people get “unstuck.”

It is in the name... uniting hearts.  

Sometimes the solution needs more than words...it needs to get to the heart of the matter.  Equine facilitated methods are restorative, trauma-informed solutions that bring the heart and the head into balance for life-changing permanent shifts.

NW Hearts United provides ongoing professionals services in Whatcom, Skagit, King and Snohomish Counties and special projects elsewhere.  We offer ongoing individual and group services for youth, adults, families, veterans, service providers and much more!

We collaborate with a network of approved off-site locations/herds and mental health professionals in the Upper Puget Sound region to offer places where the horse-human connection is allowed to expand and grow. 

Every dollar raised directly supports a heart in need of love, understanding, and healing,…a heart that deserves to FEEL safe, connected, and healthy.  

Open your hearts... Donate Today!