Category: Treatment Team

Tammy is the founder and director of The Osage Corral. She is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor who specializes in working with children and adolescents who are experiencing mood, behavior, sensory or focusing issues as a result of traumatic life events. Tammy has been certified by the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association. In addition to her work at The Osage Corral, Tammy works as a child and adolescent counselor with Integrated Service Behavioral Health.

Jill has been a professional horse trainer and riding instructor for over 35 years. As an Equine Specialist, she assists during summer camps at The Osage Corral as well as the Women’s Empowerment groups that are held every spring and fall in partnership with My Sister’s Place. Jill has completed both the fundamental and intensive levels of Trauma-Focused Equine Assisted Psychotherapy through Natural Lifemanship. Jill is a level 3/4 student of the Parelli Natural Horsemanship Program.  Her passion is studying equine body language.

Michele is an independently licensed professional counselor and a licensed chemical dependency counselor. She provides supervision and counseling at The Osage Corral.  She has extensive experience counseling pre-teens and teens with mental health and trauma issues, including post adoptive youth and adjudicated youth and their families. She has additional training in Trauma Focused–Equine Assisted Psychotherapy. In addition to her work at The Osage Corral, Michele works as a counselor at Albany Counseling Services and is on the child and adolescent team at Hopewell Health Center.

Rob will serve as both a Mental Health Professional and EAGALA Advanced Certified Equine Specialist as part of our grant funded program expansion. Hiring Rob enables us to increase the number of clients served and reduce the overall cost of our services. Rob brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to The Osage Corral and we are thrilled to welcome him on board!

Rob was teaching clients to gentle wild horses at Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue in California when he was inspired to become an EAGALA professional in 2003. He co-founded Big Heart Ranch in Malibu and has worked in the field ever since. For the past two years in New Zealand, Rob served the Youth Transitional Program, A Girl Called Hope, Women’s Refuge, Child Youth and Family Services of the Ministry of Social Development, and other clients through Equine Pathfinders Foundation and Dune Lakes Lodge. Previously in Ohio from 2012 to 2015 Rob served the Amish and Mennonite communities; Leadership Geauga County; Veterans Services of Volunteers of America, Cleveland; University Hospitals and Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University; The Cleveland Zoo; The City of Lakewood; Berkshire High School, Burton; and the LEAD Program of Lake County Educational Services Center.

As a Masters level Licensed Social Worker in Ohio, Rob’s area of concentration and internships were in Alcohol and Other Drug Addiction. He has been trained in EMDR by E.C. Hurley, Ph.D. a
distinguished Army Veteran. Rob also completed Dr. Herb Stevenson’s Gestalt Coaching Intensive to assist leaders and their teams to become better learning organizations.

Rob founded and then taught the Lake Erie College Equine Studies course in Equine Assisted Learning and Psychotherapy. He is a voluntary board member of The Cloud Foundation, an advocacy organization for the wild horses and burros of America. In 2015 Rob privately founded the
Peace Horse Program, bringing peace-building workshops to Israelis and Palestinians of all faiths.
www.equinepathfinders.com

Darla comes to us with thirty years of mental health experience. Her focus for the past fifteen years is in the area of trauma treatment.

Darla has worked for many residential camps and began her career as a teacher. She worked with children and families as a school counselor for fourteen years. In Austin Texas she was a presenter for Intervention Services as well as group and crisis counselor. St. Vincent Family Centers in Columbus Ohio, was the next workplace where she worked with children and families exhibiting severe behaviors. While with St. Vincent Family centers she became the Partial Hospitalization Program Director and then the agency Clinical Director.

While working as the Clinical Director she was able to explore the new evidenced based treatments being used to treat trauma. Darla then began working in her own private practice and for The Mt. Carmel Crime And Trauma Assistance Program. This grant funded program consisted of work with multiple trauma survivors and their families.

Darla is certified in (EMDR) eye movement desensitizing reprocessing, an evidence based therapy used with trauma survivors. She has also been trained in many other approaches to trauma in the past ten years. Most recently she has focused on equine assisted psychotherapy and learning, becoming EAGALA certified in 2014.

Darla’s other interests include nature and working with children and adults in an outdoor environment. She has been educated by The Coyote Trails School of nature in survival skills in a series of classes that enhanced her work with clients. Her work with clients and nature includes six years as a camp waterfront director and six years as a group leader for children and teens that were suffering the loss of a sibling or parent.

Tony joined the team at The Osage Corral in the Spring of 2013. Tony serves as an Equine Specialist during our summer camps and in individual and group sessions. He also integrates yoga, drumming and nature-based activities into our youth programs and services. Tony is EAGALA Certified and has completed training in the fundamentals of Trauma-Focused Equine Assisted Psychotherapy through Natural Lifemanship. Tony is also trained in mental health first aid. Before joining the team at The Osage Corral, Tony facilitated summer theater youth camps through the Appalachian Progressive Education program. He is currently employed as a Community Behavioral Health Worker with Integrated Services of Appalachian Ohio working primarily with children and adolescents.

Laci is a Licensed Professional Counselor and has been with The Osage Corral since 2011. Laci has served as a mental health counselor as well as the coordinator for Osage’s summer programming. Laci has completed training in the fundamentals of Trauma-Focused Equine Assisted Psychotherapy through Natural Lifemanship. In early 2018, Laci attended the National EAGALA conference. She has additional specialized training in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Intensive Home Based Therapy Risk and Safety Assessment. She has worked as a School Outreach Worker for Athens County Children Services and as a counselor providing Intensive Home Based Services for Integrated Services Behavioral Health. Laci is also a child and adolescent counselor in private practice.

Kayla Paige Gross is a first-year masters student in the Counselor Education program at Ohio University, where her concentrations are Clinical Mental Health and Rehabilitation Counseling. She is originally from West Virginia and received her Bachelors in Psychology from Wheeling Jesuit University in December of 2015. The summer before her senior year of high school, she volunteered at a therapeutic riding center, where she was able to learn about the benefits therapeutic riding and horses could provide, both physically and psychologically. The opportunity to do practicum with The Osage Corral seemed like a great fit, and she is very excited for the summer program to start!