August Lunch and Learn
August 20, 2026 @ 12:00PM — 1:00PM Eastern Time (US & Canada) Add to Calendar
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The Intersection Between Research and Practice
The intersection between Research and Practice: The essential role of providers in research projects.
About Our Speakers:
Dr Clare Thomas-Pino, PhD, SFHEA, CPsychol
Clare’s academic background includes Psychology, Animal Behaviour, and Mental Health Counselling. During her PhD she began bringing together her interests in humans, animals and the environment within nature based and animal-assisted services and broader human-animal interactions otherwise known as the field of anthrozoology. Her doctoral dissertation looked at the Impacts of Human-Equine Interaction on both horses and people, through the lens of Attachment Theory. While in the USA, she ran a diversified farm with her family, and worked with the UMaine System, Husson University, and Unity College, teaching, researching, and mentoring students in diverse areas, from Counsellor Education, Rehabilitation Services, and Psychology, to pre-Vet, developing and teaching courses such as Equine Nutrition; Livestock and Companion Animal Behaviour; Medical Issues for Mental Health Counsellors; and Mind-Body Connection. Since 2022, she has worked for Hartpury University where she is a Senior Lecturer in Human-Animal Interaction, Programme Manager and developer of the MScin Animal Assisted Counselling and Psychology, as well as the BSc (Hons) Human-Animal Interaction with Psychology. She teaches modules including Integrating Humans, Animals and the Environment into Counselling, Animals in Education, and Contemporary Issues in Anthrozoology.
She’s worked in nature based and animal-assisted services (AAS) for more than 2 decades, integrating the value awareness of animal behaviour can bring to personal growth and development, and the necessity for AAS to be beneficial to both animals as well as people. Clare’s past voluntary roles included working with Domestic Violence, Grieving Children, and youth STEM non-profits, along with board membership of the Maine Grass Farmers Network and Maine Sheep Breeders Associations.
She is currently a board member of IAHAIO, SCAS and HHRF, where she was a grant reviewer and SAC member from its inception, and since 2023 has been chair of the SAC. She is a former International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ) Board member who co-chaired the ISAZ 2024 Conference at Hartpury University. In the early 2000’s, she was on the board of EFMHA, chairing the research committee (now PATH International), while working with EFMHA completing 2 annotated bibliographies on EAMF. She is a subject matter expert for Pet Partners/AAAIP; and was a content reviewer for Leif Hallberg’s 2018 books The Clinical Practice of Equine Assisted Therapy & The Equine Assisted Therapy Workbook. She was part of several IAHAIO, SCAS and AASI/IAHAIO working groups.
Clare has worked with, observed, and valued animals and their behaviour since childhood. Now living in Gloucestershire, she enjoys walks in the beautify countryside with her son, and creative/artistic endeavours in her ‘spare’ time.
Sarah Urwin is a trained Counsellor/Psychotherapist and a Registered and Accredited member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy. She is a qualified Supervisor and Trainer in this field and works internationally with supervisees who practice both Equine and Animal Assisted Interventions. Sarah is based in the South West of England, is an active member of organisations such as HETI, SCAS and Social Farms & Gardens, and often sits on steering groups within these organisations. She has been Chair of Trustees for Sirona Therapeutic Horsemanship CIO for a decade.
Sarah has a background in agriculture and equine management and following a 20 year career in the British dairy industry started her own smallholding, Youngs Farm in Devon. Over the past 25 years she has offered participants from many different health and social care settings the chance to experience a farm environment and interact with horses, pigs, cows, chickens, cats, dogs, goats and guinea pigs, whilst talking about things they were finding difficult in their lives.
Sarah is passionate about this work, partly because most of it takes place in an outdoor environment but also because the focus in her sessions is almost always on relationship and connection, from the perspective of both participant and equine/animal, elements which are also central to her work as a psychotherapist.
Through her connection with Sirona, Sarah has been lucky enough to receive input from equine ethologist and writer Lucy Rees (Sirona’s patron) and has recently worked with Dr. Emily Kieson and Bonny Mealand, with the purpose of focussing on welfare issues that arise in Equine and Animal Assisted work, from an ethological perspective.
In 2025 Sarah was awarded an Honorary degree from Hartpury University for services to Mental Health and Animal Assisted Therapy.
Dr Hannah Burgon, MA Dip Social Work, MSc, BSc, Cert in Therapeutic Counselling, Cert in Riding Therapy (FCRT) Hannah is CEO and Founder of Sirona Therapeutic Horsemanship, a charity based in South Devon, UK that works with disadvantaged young people and adults and those with additional support needs.
Hannah is a qualified Social Worker and previously worked in youth homelessness and foster care and before that in a variety of jobs (including bar work and 7.5 tonne lorry driver!). Hannah learnt to ride at age 7yrs in the mountains of North Wales with her godmother Lucy Rees, author of the groundbreaking book ‘The Horses’ Mind’. She then went on to work for a number of years in various equestrian roles including dressage yards and a riding school, a summer horse camp in the USA, and backing and bringing on young horses.
In 2010 Hannah completed a PhD in Equine-Assisted Therapy & Learning through a scholarship at Cardiff University. This was published as a book ‘Equine-Assisted Therapy and Learning with At-Risk Young People’ in 2014 by Palgrave Macmillan. Hannah has had a number of papers published on equine-assisted therapy in peer-reviewed journals and is regularly asked to present at conferences on equine-assisted therapy and learning.
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