How Equine Therapy Helps Adopted and Foster Children Heal from Trauma Children who have been adopted or placed in foster care often …
Take Heart Counseling & Equine Assisted Therapy
Our licensed therapists combine evidence-based clinical care with the healing presence of horses — working alongside you in the arena, the field, and when needed, our indoor office space. For clients who have tried traditional therapy without finding lasting movement, this is often the key to healing they’ve been looking for.
Most therapy happens in an office. For a lot of people, that works. For others — particularly those carrying trauma, children who shut down when they feel observed, or high-functioning adults who’ve learned to manage what they feel — talk alone reaches a ceiling. Not because therapy isn’t working. Because the nervous system needs something words can’t always provide.
At Take Heart, sessions happen on a working ranch in Berks County, alongside horses. Here’s why that matters.
Horses respond to who you actually are — not who you’re trying to be.
As prey animals whose survival depends on reading the emotional state of everything around them, horses are extraordinarily attuned to the nervous system of anyone in their presence. They sense dysregulation before a word is spoken. And rather than reacting with alarm, they naturally offer co-regulation — slowing their breathing, yawning, staying close — cues that invite a dysregulated nervous system to follow them toward calm. This isn’t a trained behavior. It’s simply who horses are. And for clients who have spent years braced against the world, being met that honestly can be quietly transformative.
Trauma doesn’t live in the thinking mind. Healing has to reach where it actually lives.
Insight alone doesn’t heal trauma. Many of our clients can articulate exactly what happened to them, exactly how it shaped them — and something is still not shifting. This is because trauma is stored in the body, in the nervous system’s learned responses that fire before conscious thought catches up. The experience of safety, connection, and regulation — felt in the body, not analyzed in the mind — is what creates change at that level. Working alongside horses creates that experience in ways that are genuinely difficult to replicate in a standard clinical setting.
Evidence-based clinical work — not alternative therapy.
Our therapists are licensed in the State of Pennsylvania and certified through the Natural Lifemanship Institute in trauma-focused, evidence-based equine assisted psychotherapy. Our work is grounded in polyvagal theory, the neuroscience of trauma, and attachment science. Sessions are intentional and clinically directed — everything that happens in the arena connects back to each client’s specific therapeutic goals. The horses are partners in that work. The ranch is the environment that makes it possible. And the clinical framework is what makes it meaningful.
This is not a shortcut. It’s a different door — and for many people, it’s the one that finally opens.
"Take Heart!" is a battle cry for holding onto hope when things seem most impossible. Our compassion for people and our counseling services are grounded in the hope found in Jesus Christ. We believe that no person is too far gone, and we will walk alongside you while your hope is restored.
Way more than petting horses, our therapy sessions are tailored to your personal goals and use evidence-based therapeutic techniques. Our trauma-informed therapists use innovative new research in the field to provide the highest quality of care to provide counseling that will change your life.
Horses are intuitive partners and teachers. Joining with them using attachment-based principles in equine therapy allows their true personalities, wisdom, and intuition to come through and respond honestly to clients for in the moment learning. We love our gentle and playful co-workers and work hard to ensure they love their job, too.
Take Heart works with individuals, children, and families across Berks and Lancaster Counties and beyond. The people who find their way here tend to share something in common — not a diagnosis, but a feeling, or a challenging situation.
You’ve done the work — and something still isn’t shifting.
You’ve read the books, seen the therapists, understand your patterns. You can articulate exactly what happened and exactly how it shaped you. And yet something in the body hasn’t caught up with what the mind already knows. You’re ready for a different approach.
Your child has been described as therapy-resistant.
They’re struggling. They’ve sat across from therapists in offices, answered questions or refused to, and somewhere along the way the adults in their lives have started to wonder if they’re just not ready. What we’ve found, again and again, is that those same kids ask when they get to come back after their very first session. The environment changes everything.
You’re a high-functioning person who keeps everything together on the outside, while on the inside you are falling apart.
You’re good at what you do. The people around you would be surprised to know how much you’re carrying. A traditional therapy office has never quite felt like the right environment — too clinical, too performative, too much like another thing to manage well.
You want something exceptional for yourself or your family.
Not just adequate care — the best care you can find. You’re willing to invest in something that reflects that standard, and you want to know the people you’re working with are genuinely skilled at what they do.
If any of this sounds like you, let’s talk.
Take Heart is located at 699 Wooltown Road in Wernersville, Pennsylvania — a 52-acre working ranch in the heart of Berks County, accessible from Reading, Lancaster, Lebanon, and the surrounding region.
The ranch unfolds across rolling green pastures, with a hilltop that offers 360-degree views of the surrounding countryside. You might find yourself in the outdoor arena, out in the open field alongside the herd, or simply standing at the fence — grass underfoot, sun on your face, breathing air that smells of earth and open sky. The herd includes 16 horses and a miniature donkey, along with goats, chickens, and barn cats. The sounds here are different from anywhere else — horses pulling at hay, wind moving through the trees, the quiet that settles when nothing is required of you. On days when the weather calls for it, or when you simply prefer it, sessions move indoors to a comfortable, climate-controlled office space. Every session happens at your pace — and nothing happens that you aren’t ready for.
People often comment on something that shifts when they first arrive. Before a session begins, before anything therapeutic has happened, there is a tangible peaceful presence here — the unhurried movement of the horses, the smell of earth and open air, the sun on your face, the sound of the herd pulling at the grass — that quietly fills you with something that feels a lot like hope. We believe that’s not incidental. Environment is part of the medicine here.
The ranch is not a backdrop. It’s part of what works.
The people who work here are as carefully chosen as the horses. Our clinicians hold master’s and doctoral degrees in counseling and related fields, are licensed in the State of Pennsylvania, and are certified through the Natural Lifemanship Institute in trauma-focused, evidence-based equine assisted psychotherapy. Every therapist and equine professional at Take Heart brings deep clinical training alongside genuine experience with horses — because both matter here.
Meagan built Take Heart from the ground up with a clear conviction: that some healing can only happen in relationship, and that horses are uniquely suited to make that possible. She brings clinical depth, a founder’s passion, and years of experience working with individuals and families through trauma, attachment, and the complexity of what actually gets in the way of change.
Erin specializes in grief, trauma, and attachment and has a warmth that clients describe as instantly comforting. She works with both children and adults, often seeing families work through hard things together, and has a particular gift for helping people feel safe enough to begin — which, for many clients, is the hardest part.
Danielle brings doctoral-level clinical expertise and a specialty in neurodiversity — working with individuals and families navigating ADHD or autism who have found that traditional approaches haven’t fully fit. Her dual licensure as both a professional counselor and behavior specialist gives her an unusually broad clinical toolkit.
Alexa works primarily with children, teens, and young adults, bringing a strengths-based, relational approach that meets younger clients exactly where they are. Kids who arrive guarded tend to open up with her — often more quickly than anyone expected.
Kody partners with our clinicians as an equine professional, bringing a warm presence that both horses and humans are naturally drawn to. His expertise in equine behavior and nervous system work creates the conditions for powerful therapeutic moments — the kind that happen when a horse trusts the person holding the space.
With a lifetime of experience with horses and a warmth that puts even the most nervous client at ease, Brooke partners with our clinicians to create safe, grounded therapeutic sessions. She's especially gifted with children and families, meeting them with the same gentle patience she brings to every horse she works with.
If something on this page resonated — for yourself, your child, or your family — we’d love to hear from you.
We built Take Heart to offer something rare: genuine warmth, clinical expertise, and a truly life-changing experience with every client who walks through our gates. Our team gives each person real depth and attention, because that’s what this work requires and what you deserve.
If you’ve been thinking about reaching out, we’d encourage you to. The first conversation costs nothing and usually answers more questions than any website can.
Reach out by phone, text, email, or through our contact form. Our intake coordinator will respond within one business day — and from that first conversation, you’ll have a real sense of whether Take Heart is the right fit for you and your family.
699 Wooltown Rd, Wernersville, PA 19565 · (717) 917-7137 · info@takeheartcounseling.com
Take Heart is home to more than individual and family counseling. Whether you’re an equestrian looking to deepen your relationship with your horse, a leader seeking a transformative team experience, or someone simply looking to connect with the ranch and its animals — there’s something here for you.
Every program at Take Heart is grounded in the same principles that guide our clinical work — the science of relationship, the wisdom of horses, and a genuine commitment to the wellbeing of every person and animal who comes through our gate. The setting changes. The standard doesn’t.
Explore our connected horsemanship programs, therapeutic groups, corporate and leadership workshops, community events, full care horse boarding services, and volunteer opportunities.
Powerful experiences that change people — equine-assisted therapy, learning and growth, and Connected Horsemanship focus groups for all ages and experience levels. The friendships that form often last well beyond the final session.
Discover a new perspective on riding and caring for horses based on developing a relationship with the horse. Bonus: learn skills at the barn that impact every area of your life.
Intensive retreats designed to refresh, restore, and empower you and your team to experience life-changing growth and healing. Provide a powerful experience for your team that they will never forget.
Serve your community while enjoying the benefits of horses! Our volunteer team helps with caring for the herd and bringing cheer to guests at special events, while building friendships with horse and human alike.
Our 52-acre ranch is home to a carefully curated boarding community where horses live naturally — in friendly herds, with unlimited forage and a team that treats every horse like their own. We handle the details so you don't have to carry the worry. You just enjoy horse ownership.
We often open our gates for community events, workshops, and experiences that give people a chance to meet our herd, connect with the ranch, and see what Take Heart is all about. There's always a reason to come say "howdy."
Horses help in many ways, allowing us to offer a wide variety of programs for our community – something for everyone. Their unique talents shine as we pick horses for each service based on their personality, but some characteristics that are common to any horse in our herd, in any program:
How Equine Therapy Helps Adopted and Foster Children Heal from Trauma Children who have been adopted or placed in foster care often …
Teen Rebellion or Something More? When Family Therapy Can Help Spring is almost here. Longer days, more sunshine, and the promise of …
Blended Family Challenges: Creating Harmony in Stepfamilies Families come together in all kinds of ways now, and blended families are becoming more …
It is possible to find freedom from shame. Read a culmination of stories of women finding emotional freedom through equine therapy in Wernersville, PA
Wherever you are at on your journey, we are here for you. Our human and equine team will walk alongside you so you can find hope, healing, and wholeness in your life. You are worth it. Reach out to us today.
