Some people come home from war with visible wounds. Most carry the invisible ones — the kind that don’t show up on any scan, don’t respond to any prescription, and don’t go away just because the mission is over.

Hope for Healing was founded for them.

Our founder, Deaconess Kim Slininger, spent years walking alongside combat veterans, first responders, and survivors of trauma as a pastoral care provider and clinical healing advocate. She watched people do everything right — attend therapy, take the medication, work the program — and still feel fundamentally alone inside their own healing. Something was missing. Not a diagnosis. Not a technique. Belonging.

That recognition became the foundation of everything we do.

Located in Hampden, Maine, Hope for Healing brings together equine-assisted adaptive riding (EAAR), pastoral care, and clinical healing in a model built around one belief: that restoration happens in relationship — not in isolation.