Our Team - Naomi Rossthorn
Our Team - Naomi Rossthorn
Trainer and Assessor – Victoria
Naomi is a city-born psychologist, who began working with horses in experiential trauma- informed equine assisted therapy following the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Australia, in 2009. Since then she has presented at conferences on equine assisted therapy as an adjunct mental health intervention and has been offering equine assisted therapy in her private psychology practise.
Naomi’s journey in learning and offering equine assisted therapy has supported her growth and development as a psychologist and horse-person. Having worked in semi rural and rural communities for almost a decade now in various work settings she has gained experience working in disaster recovery, trauma, education, organisational psychology and private practice. The variety of work has given her experience working with a variety of people who have developed mental health symptoms from various life events, grief and loss, domestic violence, bullying, workplace burnout and vicarious trauma.
Naomi loves working and offering counselling to semi rural and rural community members and has a keen interest in rural mental health.
She has written children’s books based on the herd of horses and ponies for children as a mental health resource for learning strategies for self care and coping. She has also put together a book about: ‘How to set up an equine assisted therapy clinic’. Naomi work’s with a regular herd, Happy, Bailey, Ted and Bob who she knows well and they know her.
Naomi is excited to move into a new chapter in her career of having a teaching role with Equine Assisted Therapy Australia so she can support and share her knowledge with students keen to learn via an accredited Nationally recognised training course in Victoria. She believes that this course represents a best practise model of learning in Australia as the quality of learning, standards and teachers are audited and the course is delivered at a level that gives students a recognised qualification in the Diploma of Counselling (CHC51015) specialising in Equine Assisted Mental Health. She is looking forward to working with the students.
Naomi believes in offering practical psychological evidence based interventions so people can apply these strategies in their daily life. Continuing education is of significant importance to Naomi and she has advanced studies in Child and Family Development (certified by CCFD); Perinatal and Postnatal counselling; Disaster Recovery; Neuro-Linguistic Programming(NLP), Sensori- Motor Psychotherapy and is currently training in Somatic Experiencing. Key interests of Naomi’s are psychological wellness, resilience, post trauma recovery and growth, attachment and research.
Naomi is a registered Psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia; a member of the General Division of Psychological Practise and Australian Association of Psychologists Inc.; Crisis Intervention and Management Australasia (CIMA); and the International Association of Workplace Bullying and Harassment. She is also the Co-founder and Director of the Equine Assisted Psychologists Association (EAPA), an organisation supporting registered psychologists offering Equine Assisted Psychology.
