Case Study

What is Healing Hoof Steps?

Healing Hoof Steps provides equine-assisted mental health counseling and therapeutic riding services to individuals ages 5yrs and up in Crestview, Florida. Our mental health counseling program uses licensed mental health counselors and horses to assist in overcoming anxiety, depression, PTSD, and relationship issues. Our therapeutic riding program offers a holistic approach to improve well-being while on horseback. Since 2017, Healing Hoof Steps has completed over 4,000 session hours helping individuals, veterans, couples, and at-risk youth through therapeutic engagement with horses. Healing Hoof Steps is a 501c3 organization that relies on the community's support to serve our mission of improving lives through horses. Currently, our therapeutic riding program has just over 50 active volunteers and growing! Those volunteers support over 40 riders with special needs each week.

What challenges did Healing Hoof Steps face before getting started with Volunteer Scheduler Pro?

When we developed our therapeutic riding program in 2020, we realized a need for a more efficient way to track, schedule, and communicate with volunteers. Our staff had been reaching out to volunteers directly for scheduling and rescheduling needs which quickly began a very time-consuming task. In addition, since we were able to provide a service outdoors during the pandemic, we saw a large influx of clients seeking therapeutic activities that also provided social distancing.

How has VSP improved scheduling at Healing Hoof Steps?

VSP has allowed our team to maximize volunteer communication en masse instead of calling each time. It has also allowed us to move away from spreadsheets to determine schedules for our volunteers. Allowing our volunteers to have more responsibility in setting their preferred schedules through the app has been another efficiency through VSP.

How has VSP helped with onboarding new volunteers?

VSP has helped us create specific roles related to the necessary tasks in the Healing Hoof Steps Therapeutic Riding Program and Events. In addition, VSP has allowed us to identify the qualifications of individual volunteers, restrict roles where more experience is required, and provide a uniform system of communication within our organization.

What's your favorite feature in VSP?

Uniform text and email communication has been the most helpful feature! Before VSP, it was challenging to ensure that each volunteer was getting the same information since we had multiple staff members contacting our list of volunteers. Now, we know that everyone is getting the same important messages from our organization!

Any concluding thoughts?

We are grateful to have discovered VSP to assist our volunteer management needs. It has helped make our team more efficient to devote more time to serving our clients. As a result, we are dedicating more hours to improving lives through horses through that improved efficiency!