A Horse and His Boy: A Blue Sky Moments Story
From the desk of Jackie Garman, BSA Program Director
In the middle of March, Blue Sky Acres launched a pilot program for foster care and post-adopted children called Blue Sky Moments. It consisted of an 8-week session where an adult mentor was paired with a child, meeting once a week for an hour to work with a specific horse each time. This was a groundwork-only session. No riding was involved.
As Program Director it was decided that I would be the Mentor for the pilot program. This would allow me to experience the program firsthand in order to help set up the actual program later. We began searching for a foster family with a child that would be interested in the idea of working with a mentor and a horse. This was done mostly through word of mouth and lots of prayer.
The Lord did provide us with a middle school boy at a local group home through a friend of our Board Member Fran Todd. We moved forward and prepared all the necessary paperwork to get things started.
The first thing we did was an intake assessment with the boy’s mentor to get a mild understanding of who he is. We talked about some of his history, strengths and interests, and some hopes and goals for him as he goes through the program. We also set up a site visit so they both could meet me, see the horses and get a feel for the place he would be coming to each week.
Our first couple of lessons were spent learning the basics of horses and horse care. Some of the lessons included going over grooming and how to use each tool and how to safely approach a horse and properly halter and lead the horse to the barn.
I allowed this student to pick which horse he wanted to work with after learning a little about each one. He chose the largest horse of the herd, Hugo. This would turn out to be a perfect match for both of them. During grooming and just being with the horse was a great time to have conversations learning about each other. This was the beginning of developing mutual trust and understanding.
What could a 40-something mom & wife talk about with a young middle school boy? A lot! We had a shared love of horses of course but we just discussed life while playing with Hugo. I was also intentional about weaving in things about the Lord during our conversations when I could.
Blue Sky Moments is a Christ-centered program. We won’t bombard a student with “church” things right out the gate but we can share about our own relationship with Jesus if the subject comes up. (This was also discussed from the very beginning stage of development, during the intake assessment and prior to agreeing to participate in the program.)
As the weeks progressed, my student was confident each week to get his horse on his own, groom him and then was given an opportunity to help decide the activity for the day. One week I suggested that we just hang out in the field at first and just watch the horses, how they interact with each other and finally with us as we stand there. It was interesting to him at first but he was easily bored and wanted to move on. One of the horses, Belle, who is usually very stand-offish came up to him for a minute. That was neat to watch.
Another time, a couple of the horses were laying down in the field when my student arrived. We were able to approach one named Vinny and rub on him for a few minutes. I think my student really liked that! Vinny stayed laying down for us for a long time. Hugo got up almost immediately and came to us. Being near a large 1200-pound animal that is curled up on the ground like a lamb is really an amazing thing.
Earlier, I said Hugo and my student were a perfect match. I saw this right away as they worked together in the field arena learning how to navigate through obstacles on the ground like poles, cones, barrels, a box shape, etc. They were building a bond of trust.
One particular week, I told my student we could try something special with Hugo. He could remove the halter and lead rope and see if Hugo would “join up” with him and follow him through those same obstacles they had been working through. I prefaced it by saying, sometimes it takes a few more sessions of working with a horse before they will do it. I didn’t want to get his hopes up too much. He took off the halter and set the equipment down on the ground.
He said, “Come on Hugo” and then started walking. Hugo followed him around the entire arena, over round poles, weaving through the cones, circling around a barrel and more! It was especially impressive because this is a grass arena. With no lead rope attached to his human leader, it would be very easy for Hugo to be distracted by the sweet temptation!
I stood back in awe as the two buddies had fun together. My student was amazed and smiled so big! At the end of our time together we turned Hugo back out with his friends. He started to walk away, stopped to get a drink from the trough and my student called his name. “Bye, Hugo!” Hugo turned himself around and walked all the way back to him as if to say, “Good-bye, I had fun with you today!” I could hardly believe it!
Another time we decided to try Hugo out with a very large blow-up exercise ball. Hugo was not a fan of it! We had unhooked him again to be safe in case he demonstrated fight or flight. When I brought it out, his nostrils began to flare and every muscle was twitching. When the ball began to roll toward Hugo his eyes got very big and he tried to get away. Remarkably, he went right over to my student, stopping behind him.
He did this every time the ball came near him, he would retreat to the other side of the arena to be next to the boy. This middle school boy was his safe zone. Again, it was amazing to watch their interaction. He commented to me later that he wanted to work on getting Hugo to accept the ball and not be afraid of it.
I really enjoyed being a mentor for this program. It was a little intimidating, even scary but so rewarding to experience. These children just need to know you are committed to them and the program and that you can be trusted. Yes, specific training needs to take place in order to safely and properly work with the children enrolled in our foster care program but having the desire to build a relationship with someone who needs a friend is all that is required.
I didn’t need to have all the answers, just a listening ear. I am not a licensed counselor, psychologist or psychiatrist. I’m not there to try to pull out the child’s deepest troubles or issues. I’m just there to be myself, teach horse skills and let God and the horse do the rest.
Eight weeks was just a taste of what can be developed and cultivated between a trusted adult, a child in foster care and the right horse. Essentially our Blue Sky Moments program will be a much longer session.
Time and consistency are necessary to see even more results. I look forward to watching this program develop and for us to be able to minister to more children like we did in our pilot program. There is nothing else like it in our area!
Note: The name of our student was left out to protect confidentiality.
Note from Hallie: This program was made possible through a grant from the Rotary Club of Effingham County who gave us $500 to fund the 8 week session.