Including horses into speech therapy sessions

My name is Elizabeth Nielsen and I own and operate Tiny Voice Therapy Services, a private speech-language therapy clinic that specializes in children who are non-verbal, have a diagnosis of Autism, and use communication devices to communicate. Between myself and my 3 part time employees, we serve around 45 families with children with special needs in the following areas – Elburn, Sugar Grove, Dekalb, Sycamore, Waterman, Sandwich, Rockford, Mokena, Aurora, and Plainfield in Illinois.

My husband and I recently purchased a property with two houses, in which I converted the small house into my speech therapy clinic. It has been a wonderful transition from working out of one small room from our recent house to a 3 bedroom house with a full kitchen.

However, my dream for about 10 years now has been to incorporate horses into my therapy practice. I have had the pleasure of working at different therapy clinics that incorporate hippotherapy into their practice and have seen the benefits when the children are on and around the horses. Each child I served just excelled in that setting. With the move to the bigger property, I am finally able to achieve my dreams of incorporating hippotherapy into my own practice with my current caseload. Incorporating the horses will also attract other clients to the clinic as well, especially being near highly populated areas.

In order for this dream to come into fruition, I am in the process of purchasing a 60X100 building that will include an indoor riding arena and horse stalls. Along with the purchase of the building, I will be purchasing two horses for the therapy sessions, as well as equipment such as mounting blocks, riding equipment, riding helmets, and other various materials for therapy in the arena.

The total cost of this project is projected around $90,000. With this grant money, I will be able to apply the money to various items needed for the hippotherapy aspect of my clinic to be successful. This grant will allow me to expand my practice to other therapy disciplines as well - including occupational and physical therapists; and being able to provide to more families in the Northwest Illinois area.

I appreciate your consideration for funding my campaign and so do all of my clients and their families. Nothing provides me more happiness than seeing the happiness on my client's faces when they are exposed to animal therapy.