Tara Lord, Founder of Kupu Kupa Australia - an animal therapy business

Inspirational.Australians by Awards Australia Podcast

My name is Tara Lord. I am 23 years old, I work as a Youth programs Co-ordinator for a youth counselling and suicide prevention organisation and also work in a psychiatric hostel and as a community rehabilitation worker, I also have a role as a Youth Ambassador with the Mental Health Foundation of Australia and have volunteered with a number of organisations in the community. I have my own lived experience with mental health, and have always had a passion for helping people. One of my main passion lies where I run my own animal therapy business (Kupu Kupu Australia) , where I take my dog around to mental health and disability facilities, as well as schools, respite centres, aged care facilities, foster homes and much more. In WA there is little knowledge / services in animal therapy and that is something I am an advocate for to change hence I started my own business.
Animal Therapy is proven to reduce cortisol levels (stress hormone) and increase oxytocin, the love hormone. I’m so lucky to have an incredible job where I’m able to share this with people. I have always loved animals, and I have seen from a young age the impact they have on people. I've always had a dog and they have always a brought so much joy to my life, whenever I was sick, sad, excited, anything, they were there for me. I have always had a passion for helping people, I learnt quite young the world is a scary place where terrible things happen, I knew from this moment on, I wanted to change the world in one way or another. I wanted to share love and happiness and be a voice raise to awareness for disability and mental illness. So I decided to start up Kupu Kupu Australia. Loki was adopted from SAFE Bunbury and after lots of training and hard work and gaining qualifications and accreditation as a therapy team, We work with private clients to overcome boundaries and join them on their journey in recovery. We visit schools for de stress days, visit hospitals and aged care facilities to spread some love and happiness, and work on recovery goals and facilitate programs and interventions to suit and help people's medical/ recovery plans. Our plans for the next couple of years is to purchase a large property and add some more friends to our Therapy team (including lizards, cats, rabbits, donkeys, alpacas and much more) all rescue- this will be a fully functioning therapy ranch where clients can come for respite, rehab and much more. We also are hoping to have accommodation for families to come and have a getaway as well emergency accommodation for people experiencing domestic violence. Kupu Kupu means butterfly in Indonesia which represents the transformation into a better life. For me its about creating an inclusive environment and ensuring everybody has access, I think there is a lot of stigma in society around mental health, and I want to ensure that everyone feels welcome. I think it’s so important that we raise awareness and speak up about it, and I hope that within the work I do I can encourage people to do that. With all the work that I do I hope to break down barriers and reduce stigma in the community and raise awareness around mental health, I aim to be an advocate for change. I also recently received the Victoria Park Youth Citizen of the Year Award, and was a finalist in the 2019 and 2020 West Australian Young Achiever of the Year Awards, and am currently a finalist in the 2021 awards) I also recently completed the leadership WA course leadability which I found extremely empowering and just completed a training through the Mental Health Commission called recovery college facilitator training which I loved. I am always looking for ways to broaden my horizons and develop to support the community to work towards a shared goal of making a real difference 🙂

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