The $7,500 grant from the Feigenbaum Foundation recently awarded to Berkshire HorseWorks gives them even more cause to celebrate nearly 10 years of providing Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy, life skill development, team building, and literacy programs on their seven-and-a-half-acre ranch in Richmond. Now, funds for a new trailer for the “Berkshire HorseWorks Goes Mobile” initiative will also allow them to go off site to schools, eldercare facilities, and other organizations that don’t have the means to travel there.
“We’re really trying our best to reinforce the sort of diversity and inclusion policies which we’ve abided by over the last 10 years,” says Hayley Sumner, founder and executive director of Berkshire HorseWorks (BHW), which already works with clients on a sliding scale. Physical restrictions may preclude some clients, but the biggest roadblock to accessing the ranch is transportation and cost, Sumner realized from speaking to school districts and other facilities. Fuel and busing costs have been especially prohibitive in the last year.
BHW has always tried to “cultivate and develop different programs to answer the emerging needs of the community,” says Sumner. Their diverse programming for groups and individuals includes girls’ empowerment, anger management, relationship building, and bullying prevention. They work with veterans; inmates about to be emancipated; and those with anxiety, depression, suicidal ideations, or addiction. All programs use the Eagala (Equine-Assisted Growth and Learning Association) model, integrating horses in experiential and metaphorical activities similar to cognitive behavioral therapy, with clients overseen by a team of mental health professionals and equine specialists.
BHW has also expanded into Equine-Assisted Learning. Their horse-powered reading program, developed in the last year, adds a specialized reading person and an early education specialist to the team. “In a lot of the Pittsfield schools, which score well under the 50 percent mark and are much lower than the rest of the state, they need this now,” says Sumner. “There’s such a pervasive need, and it’s very clear with budget cuts and rising prices on all fronts that we’ve got to come up with a different way to provide access.”
This is why, in addition to going mobile, Berkshire HorseWorks will soon be appealing to local corporations and the community to help fund these programs. BHW will amp up their practice of finding corporate sponsors for school districts and, as they approach their 10th anniversary, shift their strategic approach to raising funds to include equine-assisted corporate team building.
“We’ve done it before. It’s been a little bit more under the radar.” Sumner explains that she actually started the organization with the intent to provide corporate team building, only to realize that it “wasn’t what the community needed at that time.” Corporate team building meant going on a golf or fishing trip. “We were too early for that acceptance of the efficacy of an equine-assisted team-building program.” Instead, she applied for a 501(c)(3) and focused on equine-assisted therapy, but now businesses and organizations are more forward thinking, and many are in need of staff development. BHW’s clients have included Berkshire Bank, Comcast, Berkshire Health Systems, and Deval Patrick.
A company is able to set their goal, which might be retention of employees, client services, recruitment, or just to have fun and build cohesiveness. Sumner explains that it hones leadership skills and “helps new leaders coming into an organization really blend in, gain acceptance, and clarify their direction for the company.”
What does the Eagala model actually look like? There are a lot of props—pool noodles, balls. Colleagues might pick a hat according to how they see themselves in the company and perform a task while figuring out how to stay connected to their horse. “The equines become metaphors for feelings or other people with whom they’ve experienced their trauma or whatever their issues may be,” says Sumner. Because horses are a prey animal, they will not respond “if there’s an incongruity between what you’re saying and what you’re doing. They’re highly intuitive and sensitive, and serve as mirrors to what’s happening inside a client at the time.”
The process emphasizes clean observation over perception and tries to track how clients are thinking. A horse that is walking away from you isn’t angry at you, it’s just walking away. “If you’re already ascribing meaning to that pony that you’ve never seen before, you’re going to interact with them in a completely different way that’s already been predetermined,” say Sumner. “It’s very tangible when you see it.” Role-playing where clients have to identify triggers and resources and create a safe space while avoiding triggers and engaging resources might reveal, for instance, if they’re ready to leave their addiction behind or if they still feel the need to stay connected to it.
Given the mental health crisis and the long waiting list to receive mental health services, BHW gets calls from individuals, parents, and teachers desperate for critical help. “Because we have licensed mental health professionals that provide services here, they can do a psychosocial right here within a week,” says Sumner. “We can provide equine-assisted psychotherapy within 10 days to an individual that’s in crisis or just having general anxiety/depression, whether it’s around an acute situation or has been continuing for years and they just haven’t been able to access services.”
A client’s treatment curriculum is customized after a formal assessment with mental health professionals and equine specialists. Usually, BHW recommends an eight-week program, with one hour-long session per week.
Sumner sees lots of PTSD and secondary trauma. “People are triggered by a situation that all of a sudden they’re realizing happened when they were a child, or things that are happening worldwide are just getting to them, activating a latent anxiety that they’ve been suppressing. It’s really clear that people are waiting for services and they need help now. It can’t be on a two-year waiting list, or being juggled and passed around to different schools and seeing where they get bullied first.”
“We’re just hoping that our community, our local businesses and different organizations, actually will step up and engage Berkshire HorseWorks for corporate team building and staff development to help channel funding straight toward these at-risk groups,” states Sumner.
Among Berkshire HorseWorks’ fundraising events this year, people should stay tuned for information on the annual Filly Frolic, tag sale, scavenger hunt, and gala. And open for registration now is “Ranch Life 101,” a children’s summer program that combines emotional development and life skills with a ranch adventure.
