Equine Facilitated Education
The Goal: These school-based programs support classroom teachers with formal curricula reinforcing academic and behavioral objectives.
The Programs: Triple H provides equine facilitated education programs in collaboration with local school districts. Students are selected by school staffs from Special Education classes or from among students identified as being “at risk”. A wide range of disabilities are involved from mild to severe mental retardation, autism, speech delay, down syndrome and cerebral palsy as well as multiple disabilities. Emotional and behavioral issues are also addressed. Classroom teachers, counselors, and therapists assist Triple H staff in establishing individual objectives for each student, in conducting lessons, and in evaluating student performance.
Hooves, Hearts, and Heroes: the goal is to support Individual Education Plan objectives by reinforcing the classroom curriculum. Representative objectives include:
Physical: improve balance, coordination, gross and fine motor skills
Mental: improve verbal communication, sensory integration, attention span
Emotional: improve patience, self-control, self-confidence, mastery of fear
Social: improve sense of belonging, personal responsibility, acceptance
Ranch Hands: the goal is to support the Functional Living Unit and Community Based Instruction by providing opportunities for high school students to develop both basic skills and the work ethic needed to live independently. Representative skills include:
Personal Hygiene – washing, grooming
Food Preparation– following instructions, measuring, mixing
Vocational Activities – reading days of the week, survival signs, grocery words, following schedules, reading calendars and clocks, sorting items and collating papers, sweeping and cleaning, washing dishes and clothes, painting and making minor maintenance repairs
From Fear to Responsibility: the goal is to prevent students “at risk” of dropping out of school from entering the cycle of abuse and violence that leads to a life of crime. Representative emotional and social skills include:
Self-control and dealing with frustration
Controlling aggression and anger
Accepting boundaries and authority
Socialization, and peer relationships
Self confidence and self-esteem
Two alternatives face individuals who are functionally illiterate, lacking a work ethic, and without basic social skills: either institutionalization or a life of crime. Neither of these are good choices.
From Fear to Responsibility: A Work-to-Ride Program for At Risk Youth
The Goal: To motivate “at risk” youth to complete school and break the cycle of abuse and violence before they become violent offenders by instilling a work ethic and positive values.
- Fact #1: 75% of the prisoners in our jails are functionally illiterate and 80% of their children will also be illiterate.
- Fact #2: 85% of the violent offenders incarcerated today began their lives of violence by abusing animals.
The Program: The From Fear to Responsibility program was developed over the past 6 years for abused and abandoned teenagers in partnership with Meadowlands, a Roy Maas Youth Alternatives residential facility in Boerne. During the summer, it has helped modify the behavior and change the attitudes of approximately 90 boys and girls ranging from 9 to 18 years of age. The program is growing to year-round in cooperation with the Bandera Independent School District, which will identify up to 50 “at risk” middle and high school students. The overall goal is to encourage them to complete their schooling by instilling a work ethic and the positive values essential to good citizenship. Our method is to place teenagers in situations where they must earn the trust and respect of a horse in order to control it. They are exposed to a new role model – a powerful, yet preyed animal who flees rather than fights and whose survival depends on cooperation in a herd rather than self-centered instant gratification. They become members of a new peer group that requires self discipline, builds a sense of responsibility, and inspires self confidence. This can be an effective prevention program because positive peer pressure reinforces positive changes in attitudes and behavior that break the cycle of abuse and violence. Empathy developed for the horse becomes empathy for other human beings. It is economically more efficient and morally right for society to build good citizens investing $1,000 per teenager rather than to incarcerate them as adults at $100 per day.
Why It Works: The cycle of abuse and violence is broken at its very beginning, preempting the abuse of animals by developing empathy for those very animals. One will not intentionally abuse animals once one understands them and feels sympathy for them. A new peer group is created based on shared positive experiences and accepting responsibility for others that transfers into positive motivation for remaining in school and succeeding in life. Success breeds success!
1. Empathy is developed with an animal to inspire empathy for other humans.
- Viewing the world through the eyes of the horse enables one to become other-centered rather than self-centered.
- Having to groom and care for the horse before enjoying riding it promotes delayed gratification rather than instant gratification.
2. The horse becomes an alternative role model to abusive adult predators.
- As a preyed upon animal, the horse survives by avoiding confrontation and fleeing, rather than being an aggressive predator who fights.
- The horse lives in a herd community based on cooperation and collective protection, rather than being a solitary loner concerned only about itself.
3. The program creates positive peer pressure by sharing positive experiences.
- Successfully earning the respect and trust of a horse becomes the common experience that not only binds riders to their horses but also riders to each other.
- The confidence and self esteem generated by succeeding in this sometimes frightening experience creates a social group of with positive values and respectful behavior.
