Program uses horses to help young people heal

Witchekan Lake First Nation and the Cartier Equine Centre have partnered to help at-risk youth maintain and build honesty, integrity, pride and dependability through a unique equine-assisted program called Healing Through Horses.

The horses in the program are used as tools for emotional growth and development. Participants seven years old and up learn how to process feelings and behaviours while learning about themselves and how to appreciate others. They learn how to trust their feelings and how to believe in themselves. In return, the horses will show them complete trust and respect.

"The horses don't lie, ever," said Gayle Cartier, head instructor for the program. "They have no reason to lie so they come to you honestly."

She explained that horses are so sensitive that they are constantly reading an individual's body language.

"So, if you're coming to them with anger or with aggressiveness, they mirror that right away. So you can basically take those situations and explain them to the children and they can go back and fix the situations and see how it changes the horse," she said.

Gayle said she and her husband, Daryl, a professional horse trainer and teacher, began incorporating the relationship between the horses and students into their riding program, then launched the Healing for Horses program in December 2005.

"We started to realize through our development of our relationships with our horses and our students, that the students were fortunate enough to be the recipients of something very special in the relationship and the learning experiences that they had through the horses," said Gayle.

There are currently six Witchekan Lake First Nation youth who travel to the 160-acre horse training/riding/boarding facility once a week throughout the school year. The centre is located 10 minutes north of Prince Albert.

"The feedback from the program that they run through the school system in Witchekan Lake has been very positive," said Gayle. "The teachers started realizing that they were working together better in the classrooms. They were taking back the results that we did here at the farm and using them all week in their programs at school. Kids were also giving feedback saying, '0h, I think that horse likes me,' and they will also say 'Because I was kinder to the horse he came to me.' It's all those things that they recognize and take back with them to school and they learn how it relates to the kids at school and their relationship with other people because horses are very similar to people."

The most common question asked about the program is why use horses? Horses are very much like humans and if "you can understand how and why horses are aware of our every movement, you will come to understand how this program works," Daryl explained.

"By understanding the true nature of the horse, we can set up exercises to assist the horse because the horses will identify a particular outcome so the children can identify that," said Daryl. "It seems like these kids have grown up around horses because they all seem to have that love for a horse."

According to Gayle, Daryl was born in the saddle.

"His parents actually raised and trained horses all through their lives," she said.

Daryl said that as far as he can remember he had always been around horses and worked with them from the age of five.

Like her husband, Gayle Cartier has always had a love for horses. Her passion for the animals led to teaching and specialized in developing junior riders. She also has a degree in equine studies, which she obtained from Humber College.

In light of all the positive feedback and the success of the program, Daryl hopes Healing for Horses will eventually be offered nationwide.

"Right now, we're currently in discussions with the provincial and federal government to see if we can get financing," said Daryl Cartier.

Gayle described Healing Through Horses as a building block program because each lesson fits together with the one before.

The beginning of the program emphasizes a lot on safety and then works through the session to build the confidence of the kids.

"Once we know that we got them to a certain point then we'll move on," said Gayle.

"Every one of the kids that we have here at this point has some sort of a disjointed lifestyle, so we have to make sure that they're working together very comfortably and very well," she said. "Their teachers often say to us that when the kids come to our program, that it's the most secure thing that they have. This is the most structured program that they learn and that's why they're so settled here is because of the building blocks that we put in place and that makes them secure and comfortable to do whatever we ask of them."

Although both Gayle and Daryl are happy with the success of the program and how well all of the students are doing, Gayle expressed her delight in the progress of one particular student from the Witchekan Lake who has shown great improvement. She said that when this young boy first came to the farm, he clearly had a lot of problems.

"He has had a lot of trouble and conflict in his life and had a large behaviour problem at school," said Gayle. "I was so proud when the other kids came forward and they worked with this little guy and they are the ones who are showing him the right way to deal with the horses because the horses are the teachers. We just facilitate the situation. That little boy is one of our huge successes and he is just coming along just so beautifully. We haven't had a student yet who hasn't responded to the program."

With more than 25 years of experience teaching and working with horses, both Daryl and Gayle agree that this program is moving in the right direction.

"On the teaching level of it, this is important to us and that's what's in our heart is teaching and helping kids and it's a passion of ours," said Gayle. "It's where we wanted to go all of our lives. If we feel that we can save one child from going on to the system then we're successful. Some of the little boys will say that this is the only thing that they're living for is to go and see their horse. It is really amazing."