HOPE: How horses are helping children with special needs
While horseback riding may generally be seen as a sport or a leisure activity for well-to-do families, the activity means something else entirely for a special group of young riders under the tutelage of Dr Priscilla Lightsey, her HOPE staff and her team of volunteers.
These young riders are children with special needs, training with HOPE (Horses Offering People Enrichment), an NGO in Beijing that serves individuals with special needs through Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapies (EAAT). We talked to Priscilla to understand more how these lovely animals are helping these children develop, what the organisation is about and how we can help.
EAAT in action
How did HOPE start?
I had been doing Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapy (EAAT) for many years at ROCK (Ride on Center for Kids) in Georgetown, Texas when my husband’s job took us to Beijing. Soon after, I began volunteering at the Philip Hayden Foundation Shepherd’s Field, an orphanage on the outskirts of Beijing, as a pediatric physical therapist. One day, as I was walking across the campus at the orphanage, I thought wistfully about how much l’d like to have the children partner with a horse. As a PT doing
equine-assisted therapy (EAT) in Texas, I had seen great results. Children often improve faster when partnering with a horse compared to traditional PT.
So, I actively began to pursue the idea. Then one day at church, I was introduced to an American woman who was living here and had two horses she kept at the Equuleus International Riding Club. She liked my idea and asked the management at the stables if they would agree to let me try it there. It was kind of an odd idea to them, but they agreed. They let me try four horses but I could only use one of them as a therapy horse; it actually takes a very special horse to do a therapy job.
I began by serving orphans every other Friday. And then someone wrote about me in an expat magazine and expats began to hear about me. I began to do physical therapy with expat children too, which helped me start and fund HOPE. Then an American who had also read about me called me up to tell me about her sweet old horse that she wasn't using. And that horse – Snipper – became our first therapy horse.
Special horses for special children. HOPE therapy horse, Mu’er, greeting a child (in wheelchair) from orphanage.
Your family has moved back to the US for a while now, so you travel a lot between the two countries. How do you organise your time between the US and China?
I come back around three to four times a year. When I'm back in the States, I work at ROCK (Ride on Center for Kids), Courtney Cares and am a professor teaching Introduction to EAAT. So I have to manage my schedule and my work while in the US. My work in the US is very supportive of this, and though it's a little complicated, it's been what I needed to do to help HOPE to grow and maintain being a safe and effective program and for the staff to continue to learn and develop and understand EAAT.
HOPE staff Omid is leading a young boy on Mu’er, one of the centre's therapy horses
What is HOPE’s mission and vision?
Our mission is to partner with the horse to enrich the lives of children of special needs. But this isn't just for the kids; we work with adults as well and create awareness of the healing properties of the horse.
When I first came, the volunteers were all expats. Now we have more Chinese volunteers, with around 300 in total helping out. It's wonderful to see how many volunteers we have. They have told us how HOPE has changed their perspective of special needs and made them more compassionate. Now they have a better understanding of people with special needs and what the parents and the caregivers need to do for them. It's really wonderful.
Our vision is to become an exemplary service provider, educator, and leader of therapeutic horsemanship, equine-assisted activities and encouraging service to individuals with special needs.
In 2017, we held our first Introduction to Equine-assisted activities and therapies course and another just a few weeks ago after receiving requests from stables in other cities such as Xiamen and Shenzhen. It's not as simple as putting a child on and taking the horse for a walk; we give a lot of thought into which horse to use, the quality and qualifications of a therapy horse, horse training, volunteer training and instructor training and safety in order to be an effective program.
Video: Dave's Studio
Why the horse?
Because it’s fun. For others, it’s because it does not feel like therapy. Yet riding, grooming, leading, and working with horses offer many challenges and rewards that can enhance the quality of life for the participants. Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapy (EAAT) has been shown to aid children and adults with disabilities to make gains in many areas of life such as physical, cognitive, speech-language, and social-emotional skills.
Because the horse is a powerful healer. Studies have demonstrated that EAAT can have a positive effect on individuals with special needs including autism, cerebral palsy, blind and visually-impaired, Down syndrome and many other disabilities. On one occasion, a five-year-old orphan who had not spoken since she had arrived at her orphanage said her first word while on the horse at HOPE!
A teacher from Bethel Foster Home, a home for orphans that HOPE serves, once said that the horse is the key to unlocking the heart of the child. They first learn to trust the horse, then the child learns to trust himself or herself, and then trust the people helping them at HOPE. This experience can be the first step towards the child interacting with others and gaining confidence.
Because horses are non-judgmental. When riding, the horse’s movement provides a rich sensory experience which helps facilitate balance, walking, and other motor skills. Interacting with and riding a horse can help individuals with disabilities to heal, grow, learn, and experience a recreational sport. Additionally – and a key factor in the success of EAAT – is the connection between the horse and human. Participants may develop a special relationship with the horse, which can foster communication and social-emotional skills. The horse is non-judgmental by nature and HOPE horses have been carefully selected and trained; combined, these factors enable HOPE to successfully serve individuals with special needs in partnership with the horse.
Summer Camp: HOPE volunteers make it all happen!
How do you select and train your horses?
Not every horse can be a therapy horse; we need to look at its temperament, which is the horses' mindset, and gait pattern. And the reason why the gait pattern, how they walk and how they move, is so important is that when a horse walks, the horse imparts movement to the rider at their body and at their pelvis simulating human walking and mimicking the human gait and stride. So that's huge! If you have a child born with cerebral palsy, for example, who has an abnormal muscle tone hence an abnormal gait pattern, they're not going to be able to know what a 'typical gait' feels like. But being on the horse can give him that movement, which can really help improve their walking.
There was this teenager I was working with at ROCK who began to ride. Weeks after, his grandma told me that he was walking from the kitchen to the living room without his walker. A couple more weeks later she says, 'he's walking around the house without the walker!' One day he came to ROCK, got out of the car and walked all the way to get his helmet without a walker! To this day he doesn't use a walker. And the only thing that changed in his life was that he began to ride a horse.
So it's really amazing how it can help physically. The horse's gait is rhythmical, frequent, bilateral and symmetrical. So it's really important that the horse has the right gait because we need to impart that symmetrical movement to the rider. If they have a limp, then they're not really the best horse for EAAT.
A young boy is learning to brush the horse with a 'massage brush', which are used when learning to groom horses
How has HOPE helped children with special needs?
In addition to what I've mentioned earlier, another child who was an orphan with autism said his first word on the horse. His ayi was stunned and the HOPE team was moved almost to tears!
Other children, especially those with cerebral palsy or gross motor delays, can benefit from riding the horse. The HOPE team has seen children who have improved their balance skills to such an extent that their standing and/or walking was dramatically better after riding at HOPE. We have some remarkable videos of two different participants, filmed before and after their riding sessions, that demonstrate a significant improvement in their ability to walk. Recently, a child with cerebral palsy, who has perhaps three words in his vocabulary, was asked to thank his team after riding and say, xiexie gege. He clearly said gege as he thanked Omid – a HOPE team member who he’s especially fond of–adding a new word to his vocabulary!
Parents of children with autism have expressed how working with the horse has helped their child. Focusing on the task of riding, while listening to their instructor, has helped them improve their attention span when off the horse. They can be happy and focused while on the horse, which can sometimes help them to focus even when not on the horse.
What classes are offered?
HOPE offers individual and small group sessions during the school year and summer camps during the month of July. Services to orphans are free of charge. A sliding fee scale is available for other participants.
Individuals seeking EAAT services should contact HOPE. After completing the necessary paperwork, a HOPE team member will contact the family to set up an evaluation to determine if the person is a good candidate for EAAT. Safety is paramount, so each applicant is carefully considered to determine if EAAT is appropriate.
At this time, due to the limited number of horses that we have, HOPE has a waiting list. However, we welcome inquiries, are happy to answer questions, and want to assist families interested in EAAT.
Summer camp activity: learning to use reins - 'steering' a volunteer before “steering” a horse.
What are classes like?
We have our regular lessons once a week, 40 minutes each time, and our summer camp. The weekly classes are to help give the kids a good routine while the summer camp takes place four days in a row, and apart from riding and horsemanship, there will be a lot of teamwork, games and indoor artwork.
For our summer camp, we can only serve 6 children per camp because we only have three to four horses we can use, and one is only for grooming. The first year I did it, some of the parents told me at the end of the camp how much they appreciated it and were almost in tears.
Many of our students are children with autism, but we have a lot of other children with disabilities as well. But some kids with autism are kind of in their own little world and don't necessarily communicate well with others. So in the summer camp, I would have them play games that would help them interact with people without necessarily talking to them. In one game, for example, some people would be on the horse and some children would be on the ground and they would hold up red cards for red light and green cards for green light. In order to play this game, they had to kind of look up and look at another child in order to play this game. They also had to play games in which they had to hold the lead rope which is something they lead the horse with, and then we would go over an obstacle course, so they didn't have to touch each other but they were next to another person; they're not quite interacting but in a sense they were interacting. So the parents really appreciated that they were doing things together as a group and were either socialising with others or beginning to socialise with others and there was no one judging each other.
How can we help?
Come visit! Seeing the program in action enhances the understanding of what we do. Plus, it’s fun to see
the smiles of the participants. Visitors are welcome!
Other ways to help are:
Volunteering. Volunteers are an essential part of HOPE. Our program could not operate smoothly without them! Running a safe and effective program EAAT program requires assistance in many areas. Some volunteer positions include:
a) Side-Walker, whose primary role is to facilitate the safety of the participant;
b) Horse Handler, whose role is to work with the horse, including leading the horse during an EAAT session (for ages 16 and up);
c) photographers to take pictures during sessions;
d) cooks to make and serve the lunches for the orphans and camp participants;
e) assisting staff with fundraising, translating materials, editing blogs, cleaning tack, and more (No horse experience is necessary to help at HOPE!).
Note: Kids younger than 16 can volunteer too, but they won't be working directly with a horse. Please contact HOPE for more information.
All our volunteers are required to go through volunteer training, which is offered once a month. Training facilitates a safe program and a better understanding of the EAAT sessions.
A young blind orphan feeding the pony some carrots. She’s laughing because she likes hearing the sound of him crunching the carrots
Donate. HOPE requires funds to pay for the care of our four horses and five staff as well as on-going training of the HOPE team.
Therapy horses are special horses, and HOPE horses have the correct temperament and gait to be a therapy horse. Additionally, horse welfare is of primary importance at HOPE. Since the horse is a key member of the HOPE team, we do our best to keep them healthy and 'happy'. Our sliding fee scale for participants does not cover the cost of our expenses. Donations are gladly accepted. Recurring donations are especially helpful.
Help us increase awareness. The concept of equine-assisted activities is not well known in China.
Learning more about our program–including coming to visit–can help spread the word that partnering with the horse can help individuals with disabilities. Horses have historically been seen as an animal for the privileged, but at HOPE we recognise the healing properties and the special connection between the horse and the human. Help us educate the public!
HOPE is an accredited NGO founded by Dr Priscilla Lightsey, a life-long horse enthusiast who has a passion for serving children with special needs. Her credentials include a Doctor of Physical Therapy, a Master of Arts in Special Education, Hippotherapy Clinical Specialist and PATH Int’l Certified Instructor. Her team includes Luna Sun, Director of Operations & Programming, Amy Tripson, Equine & Therapeutic Horsemanship Director, Omid Ma, Head Groom & Instructor in Training, Lucia Zhou, Volunteer & Program Coordinator. For more information, add them on WeChat (ID: HOPE_BJ_CHINA) or visit their website at https://www.hopebeijing.org.
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