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Scottsdale equine therapy program launches for veterans, first responders

By
Published  May 16, 2026 3:16pm MST
Mental Health
FOX 10 Phoenix

The Brief

    • May is Mental Health Awareness Month, prompting organizations to highlight specialized community care initiatives.
    • Hunkapi Farms in Scottsdale has launched a new free program tailored for first responders and military veterans.
    • The initiative pairs equine therapy with a Scottsdale Research Institute clinical study to provide alternative trauma recovery resources.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and a farm in Scottsdale is helping make a difference in the community, offering a new program for first responders and veterans.

What we know:

At Hunkapi Farms, staff members strive to help countless people heal from trauma, with animals. Their most recent partnership is helping them to reach even more lives.

"We have a new partnership with Scottsdale Research Institute running a one-dose macro study on first responder and military veterans and referring them here offering to do post work integration work," Terra Schaad, the executive director and founder of Hunkapi Programs, said.

The program is a free six-week cohort using hands-on work with the horses. The curriculum supports veterans and first responders with stress management while also helping them to build valuable mental health tools.

"We get to take them through a six-week cohort teaching them about their nervous system, fight-flight, freeze response, stress response and how to deactivate stress response in the system," Schaad said. "It’s engagement with the horses that are designed to teach them about what’s going on inside them how responding to stress engagement with horses through ground expedites doing partner work."

Local perspective:

Nicolas Jones, an Army veteran and a volunteer with the Scottsdale Research Institute, has a deep understanding of these challenges because he worked as a first responder for many years.

"I have had my own medicine journey and experience. I’m in school now to become a therapist," Jones said. "With first responders and veterans a bit frustration in mental health field is it doesn’t work because just talking about things, I think equine therapy is more bottom-up processing, so a combination of the two and incorporating mind, body, soul that’s really effective for first responders and veterans."

Dig deeper:

The horses at Hunkapi are always here to help those who need it.

"It is unbelievable. I am so proud of the work she is doing, so happy she met me doing it and really grateful we get to be a part of that process," Schaad said.

The Source: This information was provided by Hunkapi Programs and an Army veteran using their resources.

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