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Meet our Whole Heart Team

Our team open their hearts to our youth, adults, and herds everyday. Highly experienced, certified and licensed mental health and equine professional teams that work closely together with you building connection for brighter futures.

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Amy Schilder, Founder, Director, LMHCA

 

Amy is deeply dedicated to the work of transforming lives. She is passionate about supporting your journey to coherence, empowerment, joy, hope and fulfillment. Her methods focus on a somatic experiencing, embodied, neuro-experiential lens. Clients report feeling empowered as individuals while also learning to support, collaborate, and find strength in the connection they have with loved ones, peers, and their communities.

Her therapeutic approach is interactive and collaborative, utilizing the natural living world and your connection to it as a guide towards therapeutic wisdom.

Amy is NW Hearts United EFS’s Founder & Director.  She has 25 years in art and equine therapeutic, experiential educational programming.  Amy brings a combination of experience in nonprofit management and in providing equine-facilitated methods for growth, learning and therapy.  In 2023, Amy earned her Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a specialty in Children, Marriage, & Family Counseling from Walden University. She is certified by the Professional Association for Therapeutic Horsemanship (PATH) as an Equine Specialist in Mental Health and Learning (ESMHL), the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association (EAGALA) and by the Certified Horsemanship Association (CHA).  

“Through calming the nervous system, regulating emotions and energy, and ultimately on finding moments of joy, lightness and hope, I can help you move forward differently.”

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Emily Hamilton, LMHC

Emily is a licensed mental health counselor who has worked in community mental health and currently works within the public school system. Her professional experience and passion so far has primarily been focused on supporting youth ages 5-21. Raised in Whatcom County, she can’t imagine calling anywhere else home. She double majored in Psychology and Spanish from Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina and earned her Masters in Rehabilitation Counseling from Western Washington University in August 2020.. In her free time she loves to be outdoors and especially enjoy hiking. “I’ve always been an animal lover and currently have 2 rescue dogs, June and Remi.”  

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Beth Pruitt

Beth is an equine specialist and mental health counselor.  Beth is currently a Special Education teacher with a MA in Mental Health Counseling and a background in youth and family services.  She has worked in many different roles supporting youth since high school, and started working in equine facilitated programs while getting her BA in Education from Washington State University. She has also had the privilege of having horses her entire life, spending most of her free time outside or in the barn.  She has been EAGALA certified since 2019 as an addition to her Mental Health and Education background. 

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Shannon Whitelaw, MA, AAC-L, MHP, C.Ht.

Shannon Whitelaw, lives in Bellingham, WA.  Shannon is a loving mom, a school-based mental health clinician at Compass Health, and dedicated mental health counselor for NW Hearts United.  She brings experience from previous roles in supporting youth at Maxim Healthcare Services, FirstSteps for Kids, Inc. and Blue Train Tutoring. Shannon Whitelaw holds a Master's degree in Human Behavior from National University.  Although new to equine facilitated methods, she embraces the healing and growth of her clients with a giving heart.

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Catherine Stehr, MA, LMHC

Catherine Stehr, MA, LMHC is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and a certified practitioner of Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) with EAGALA. She specializes in individuals, couples and family therapy.  Catherine has experience working with a wide variety of patients while her area of expertise are anxiety, depression, life transitions, grief and loss, family dynamics and self esteem. She is dedicated to supporting her clients on their healing journey using goal oriented, client focused practices. She works to identify and build on her patient’s strengths to attain their desired personal growth.

Catherine earned a dual Master of Arts in Applied Behavioral Science with a focus in Family Systems Counseling and Management Consulting from the Leadership Institute of Seattle and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Child and Family Studies from Washington State University.

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BreAnna Boyd

Coming Soon...

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Pat Rutz

Pat Rutz, Equine Specialist in training, has 25 years of horse experience.  Her experience bridges everything from raising babies, to maintaining the extremely aged, to Natural Horsemanship training, to barn ownership. Pat and her husband, Denny, operate and graciously share their facility, Emily’s Stables in Stanwood, WA.  EFMHL opened a whole new world of possibilities for her.  “I bought my barn with the express purpose of having a therapy program, with the possibility of my mares being an integral part. It has been an amazing experience and incredibly fulfilling to have an active part in the healing process. It’s an honor to work with the horses and see them do their magic.”

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Laura Schonberg

Laura is an Equine Specialist in training.  From a young age she showed competitively. Laura has a BA in Abnormal Psychology, with minors in English and Special Education, and Masters in Education from the University of Washington.  After ten years of teaching in alternative educational settings, Laura completed her PK-12 certification in school administration from Western Washington University and continued as a school principal and program director at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.  In 2021, Laura will have completed her EAGALA equine specialist and CHA certifications.  She currently volunteers with several equine-assisted service models in addition to clients at NW Hearts United, and re-starts foster horses through Skagit Animals in Need.  

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Samantha Heath

Sam holds an BS in Psychology from the University of Washington.   She is a certified Equine Specialist through the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Assoc. (EAGALA).  In 2008, she graduated from the HEAL (Human Equine Alliance for Learning) Equine Facilitated Learning/Psychotherapy program.  Sam has also coordinated an Equine Intensive Workshop with Wyatt Webb (Psychotherapist and author of “It’s Not About the Horse”) and gone through the Horse Boy training method.  She has professionally involved in the field of EFMHL and Natural Horsemanship since 2004. 

The Horses...

Our herd members are truly the heart of everything. By working closely with facility partners and their amazing herds, we are able to offer a variety of programs that perfectly harmonize with our clients' needs and goals.  Each member of our equine team embrace their role as lead facilitators and we feel humbled to be able to partner with each and every one of them.

We invite you to meet a few here...

© 2017 NW Hearts United.

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