Patti and Randy Mandrell
Refuge Services, with a 40-acre equestrian center offering several kinds of equine-assisted therapy, has 21 horses working with about 170 clients every week.
Patti Mandrell, director of therapy, who co-founded the nonprofit center in 1999 with her husband, Randy Mandrell, said clients range from 2 years to older than 70.
People come with different medical diagnoses or because they want to improve their relationships with themselves and others, Mandrell explained.
“It’s all about healing the whole body, mind and spirit. Because we are a Christian nonprofit the spiritual side is part of the healing,” she added.
Related story: Being Masked Rider was welcome interruption of Caroline Hobbs’ passion for equine-assisted therapy
Refuge Services offers hippotherapy, a form of physical, occupational or speech therapy using a horse’s movement to stimulate human healing, therapeutic riding and equine-assisted psychotherapy.
It has special services for veterans suffering from PTSD, according to refugeservices.org.
Why horses are good for this therapy
“A horse is the friend that listens and doesn’t complain or talk back. They are constant and consistent,” Mandrell explained. “Horses have a lot to teach us in regard to relationships. They are very forgiving animals, even though they have excellent memories. They are sensitive and they are honest.”
It’s amazing to watch horses who have had traumatic pasts transition and become therapy animals, she added.
With the help of therapy horses, some children who’ve been nonverbal, find their voices.
“We have kids start talking on the backs of horses and it’s just like, how is this happening?”
She’s seen clients with autism, who are overstimulated and dysregulated, calm down as soon as they get on a horse, Mandrell said.
The work and healing occur on many levels. The science is complex, but it involves how the rhythmic and bilateral movement of horses impacts the human brain stem and helps the brain process.
“Because of all that rhythmic movement … it’s helping kickstart things that have a hard time starting and it slows things down that are going too fast. It helps regulate the body and when the body is in better rhythm, it’s able to function better,” Mandrell said.
In the past 10 years, imaging studies have identified which parts of the human brain are activated with what kind of horse movement.
“Certain movements benefit in different ways,” she said.
And it’s much less intimidating to hang out with a horse than confront traumatic memories in a therapist office.
“That can be really hard for people and the brain will not allow that (traditional talk therapy) until the brain is ready,” Mandrell said.
Mandrells met at Texas Tech
Mandrell, who grew up on a small ranch in Hale Center, said she got her first pony when she was five and loves the lifestyle. She and her husband met when they both attended Texas Tech. Patti was a High Rider and was on the selection committee for the horse that would ride with the Masked Rider in the mid-1990s. She got her master’s degree in counseling in 1998.
When they married, Patti was a counselor and Randy, a cowboy. Even though equine-assisted psychotherapy was a new field, especially in West Texas, they knew it was what they wanted to do.
Early on, before returning to Lubbock to start Refuge Services, they started a residential treatment center for girls with eating disorders on a horse ranch near Houston.
“It was the first of its kind in the country,” she said, adding equine-assisted therapy and psychotherapy has grown exponentially around the world since then.
Refuge Services hosts several international trainings in equine-assisted therapy each year.
The couple knew sharing horses and therapy was their life goal, so they offer services for free and at reduced rates to about 75 percent of their clients.
New building helped cut down waiting list
Sometimes Refuge Services has a waiting list, but Mandrell said she works diligently to keep the list near zero.
“A waiting list is a bad thing. It’s hurting people who we can’t help,” Mandrell said in a video on refugeservices.org.
Refuge Services is funded through donations, grants and collaborations with other agencies, like the Texas Veterans Commission.
In 2019 Mueller Inc., a metal building and roofing company, awarded Refuges Services a metal building for its offices and therapy area. Each year the company, based in Ballinger, awards a building to an exceptional nonprofit, through its Helping Hands program.
While Refuge Services had lots of open space, “It’s West Texas — the weather — when the dirt is blowing and you can’t see your hand in front of your face, it’s hard to do therapy.”
The new building has made a tremendous difference, Mandrell said. “It opens doors. It helps us eliminate the waiting list. That’s what it’s about — helping people and this allows us to do that — at a whole other level.”
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