Roxy meandered to the front of the arena at Ruby Ranch Mental Health. Her final client had left, and the therapy horse sensed it was time for lunch.
Kim Ibarra, a licensed clinical social worker, gave Roxy a pat, slipped on her halter and led her to the horse pen.
Equine specialist Laura Williams greeted them by the troughs.
“Lunchtime,” Ibarra called. Roxy nickered as Williams tossed in handfuls of hay, then quickly buried her muzzle in her meal.
Ibarra opened Ruby Ranch in 2024 to bring equine-assisted psychotherapy to Grants Pass. She said working with horses can help many people, especially children dealing with trauma, make progress when talk therapy has stalled. But limited insurance coverage and a shortage of trained providers makes the treatment difficult to access in Southern Oregon.
“Horses are so in tune with human emotions,” Williams said. “They can read these kids like a book.”
If a client is tense and nervous, Williams said the horses might keep their distance, but if the client takes a few deep breaths and regulates their emotions, the horses might feel comfortable approaching. There’s no riding involved. Instead, it’s about establishing a connection with the horse.
That breakthrough moment
Melissa Sargent was 15 years old when she discovered the power of horses.
At the time, she felt lost and was grappling with questions about her adoption. When Sargent was an infant, the state twice removed her and her siblings from their biological parents, who were battling drug addiction. The first time, Sargent’s parents fought for custody and won. The second time, they chose not to fight.
“I took a lot of it to heart,” Sargent said. “Did I do something wrong? Was I a bad kid?”
Sargent said she was adopted by an amazing family but struggled to find peace with her past. Her older sister saw that conflict and reached out to a local ranch, hoping to find her a positive outlet. That’s where Sargent met Williams, who was managing the ranch at the time.
“In the end, she kind of became like a daughter to me,” Williams said.
The two spent every weekend at the ranch together. Sargent helped clean stalls and train riding clients. She found comfort in the horses. She appreciated that they didn’t treat her differently because she was adopted, something she worried some of her peers did.
“There's no judgment. There's no expectation,” Sargent said. “There's just nothing but just kindness and love.”
The repetition of working with horses, Sargent said, led to real progress. She channeled her energy into the animals and received positive feedback in return.
She remembers the moment it seemed to click. Williams was working with a stallion named Dorado in a round pen full of mares. She was teaching him to stay focused despite the distractions.
“You need to connect back with me,” Sargent remembers Williams telling Dorado. “This is what we’re doing.”
The message resonated with Sargent.
“I don't have to be in my own head worrying about why my parents didn't want to be parents to me,” she said. “I don't have to have those thoughts. I could just be present.”
Sargent carried that lesson with her outside the ranch and into her adulthood. In 2014, she founded the non-profit Heart and Hooves to give others access to the therapeutic benefits of animals, just like she had.
Many of her clients have special needs or have siblings with special needs. Sargent said many of them come in unsure how to play and connect with each other. Activities such as grooming teach the kids patience and how to care for themselves.
“Laura is really why I did that,” Sargent said. “Being able to share our horses is really, really cool.”
Why the horse?
Even without a therapist, Sargent said the solace she found in horses improved her mental health. The connection between horses and people is the foundation of equine-assisted psychotherapy.
Ibarra said working with horses can make therapy feel more approachable for young people. Many of her clients have experienced family trauma that feels easier to work through with animals than people.
“They're not as offended of Roxy walking away as they would, like say their mom, right?” Ibarra said. “It's a safer place to practice the same skills, and then once they get the hang of it, they can apply it to their relationships.”
Sessions at Ruby Ranch often happen among a therapist, an equine specialist, a horse and a client.
“Each of us has a value and role, but together we're like a powerhouse team,” Ibarra said.
Ibarra plans activities around a client’s treatment goals but allows the client to decide how to carry them out.
She might, for example, suggest the child lead Roxy over a hurdle. The horse is free to move around and doesn’t have to cooperate, so the child has to figure out how to get Roxy to follow. Ibarra provides various tools, such as a halter, that might encourage Roxy to make the jump.
The activity can help clients practice perseverance, patience and creativity.
“Often we don't jump to solving things for them,” Ibarra said. “We often let them kind of problem solve.”
Both Ibarra and Williams point out what the horse is doing and often ask the client to explain what they think it means.
Ibarra said interactions with horses act as a metaphor for the client’s own life. She said a child might watch Roxy walk away from a cone and connect it with avoiding a problem.
“That's me moving away from my problems,” Ibarra said, describing how a child might respond. “I don't want to be by my problem.”
Those responses can give Ibarra insight into how the child is thinking and help her decide what approach to take next, whether that means talk therapy or more physical activities.
The rural struggle
At Ruby Ranch, Ibarra uses a framework developed by the Equine-Assisted Growth and Learning Association, Eagala.
The international organization trains mental health professionals and equine specialists to provide services using horses. Ibarra completed the training and joined professional networks where providers swap techniques and provide additional training. The closest such network is in Portland.
“It's nice to have people who kind of speak the same language as you and [use] similar models,” Ibarra said.
Ibarra is one of few Eagala providers offering equine-assisted psychotherapy service in Southern Oregon, and her waitlist can stretch to five months.
Hiring another provider could reduce the wait, but there are few therapists in the area to begin with, Ibarra said. She added that it’s difficult to recruit therapists to move to rural communities. Ruby Ranch also must compete with larger organizations.
“There are so many things that make it difficult or less enticing for providers to come to rural areas,” Ibarra said.
Insurance coverage poses another barrier. Ibarra previously worked with CareOregon, but the insurer stopped covering its out-of-network providers in 2025. The change forced Ibarra to stop seeing three clients and remove many more from her waitlist.
Ibarra now contracts solely with AllCare. She would like to hire another provider who could also contract with the insurer to get her waitlist down. In the meantime, Ibarra found other solutions to see clients.
Ruby Ranch became a nonprofit at the beginning of 2026, in part so it could seek grants to subsidize the cost of treatment.
“If they don't have insurance or they can't afford out-of-pocket services, then they can apply for our Ruby scholarship and pay what they can, and then the scholarship kind of fills in the rest,” Ibarra said.
The scholarship covers eight sessions before a client must reapply. Williams said funding from local foundations has made a big difference for clients.
“All that kind of stuff helps her open the door for people who can't afford to pay,” Williams said.
Ibarra hopes to build a network of people in the Rogue Valley. Every quarter, Ruby Ranch hosts a demonstration for mental health professionals and equine specialists.
Ibarra said the treatment can be hard to fully understand without seeing it firsthand. So at the demonstrations, Roxy or another member of the herd is there to help show how it works.
