Barbara Robbins

Barbara Robbins is a consultant with Cooperative by Design. Her experience, training and passion focuses on leadership development, teambuilding, organizational change management and conflict transformation. She enjoys helping organizations discover and tap into unused potential in their staff, taking them to a new level of understanding, motivation and performance.

Barbara utilizes a collaborative process in her consulting practice that yields transformative outcomes for her clients. Her processes are especially suited for conflict transformation and change management. Times of conflict in an organization’s life present unique opportunities for growth and positive change. She has many years of experience in working with non-profit organizations, corporations, and congregations. She has written leadership development and teambuilding curriculum highlighting the important components of personality and how it connects to performance. She is founder of a unique experiential learning program, which involves working with horses, called HALT® (Horse Assisted Learning and Therapy) which many organizations and individuals have benefited from.

In 2020 Barbara founded The HALT Foundation, a nonprofit that envisions being a leading advocate of Equine Assisted Services throughout VA and beyond. Their mission is to resource and advance the life-giving field of equine-assisted psychotherapy and learning.

Among her educational credentials is a MA in Conflict Transformation and Organizational leadership from one of the leading peacebuilding programs in the country, the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding of Eastern Mennonite University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in social work from Baylor University and a Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Pastoral Counseling from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In addition to her consulting work, Barbara and her husband of 38 years, Alan, own and operate a horse boarding business in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. They have three sons, Michael (and his wife Jen), Brian (and his wife Emily) and Matthew (and his wife Nikki). They have two grandsons, Thomas and Will, and a third on the way. Her hobbies include anything related to being outdoors including trail riding, yard work, and water activities.