Blue Sky Moments - Serving Children in Foster Care Through Horses and Mentorship
- From the desk of Jackie Garman
A “blue sky moment” might be defined as a time where all constraints are ignored, and you are able to dream the impossible. We take that a step further at BSA and add that with God all things are possible.
This phrase is a perfect title for our pilot program that launches in March of 2022. Blue Sky Moments is a Christ-centered mentorship program that seeks to improve the life course of foster and adoptive children while helping them walk in their God-given destiny and purpose. This is done through volunteer mentors,
Christian principles and equine facilitated learning (EFL) to assist in developing life skills.
According to fostergeorgia.com the state of Georgia has approximately 11,921 children in foster care as of August 2021. We saw the tremendous need in our own community for a program that brings together horses and children of trauma in a one-on-one mentorship model. There is nothing else like it being offered in our area.
So many foster children have experienced some form of trauma, affecting their human development and the way they interact at home, in school, and in the community. Many of these children are at risk of repeating the destructive cycle of their parents after they age out of foster care. It is not hard to understand why children that experienced trauma or neglect have a difficult time trusting people. They adopt a survival mentality that gets them through each experience that is thrown at them. Horses are very much the same. They are prey animals, so they are always in survival mode, scanning their environment for possible threats.
Teaching these children how to communicate with their horse through body language, energy and pressure lets them develop a greater capacity for empathy, social-and self-awareness. As these youth get comfortable in their routine with their mentors and horse, their willingness to apply themselves improves. This success eventually translates to home, school and community settings.
-Rebecca Britt, Stable Moments
This is where a therapeutic program like Blue Sky Moments steps in. Cultivating an environment where each child can learn that they not only matter to us but matter to God as well, is the core of what we are about.
We want to minister to foster and post-adopted children ages 5-17 along with offering support to their families. Each child is paired up with a horse and a trained volunteer mentor. An intake assessment is done to get an understanding of the child’s history, strengths, challenges, and goals in order to develop an individualized plan of care. The mentor then meets with the child and the same horse once a week where they participate in groundwork-only learning activities. When this is done over an extended period of time a strong foundation of stability and trust can be built between the child and a safe adult. The single most common factor for children who develop resilience is at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or another adult, according to a study found at developingchild.harvard.edu.
Research shows that children with attachment issues can successfully attach to animals and eventually transfer that trust to the people in their lives. This environment allows for children to develop a bond with an animal they can relate to while making meaning of their own foster/adoption story.
-Barn Buddy Program of GA @Save the Horses
We ask that you partner with us in praying for our pilot program that will run for eight weeks beginning in March. The Lord has already provided us with a fantastic advisor from the Georgia Division of Family & Children’s Services (DFACS) who has been extremely helpful in developing our program.
A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing;
Psalm 68:5-6