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Building Resiliency
Tamara Merritt has been working in EAAT for more than 29 years, providing oversight, management, and program development for numerous therapeutic riding centers. Currently, she is the Associate Executive Director at Hearts & Horses, Inc., a PATH Intl. PAC in Loveland, CO, where she oversees program operations, research collaborations and program development. She has a BS degree in kinesiology and is a PATH Intl. Registered Therapeutic Riding Instructor and ESMHL. In 2009, she was named PATH Intl. Region 10 Instructor of the Year.
Many youths today are experiencing great challenges, which ultimately can undermine their long-term well-being and health. These challenges include living in poverty, exposure to trauma and adversity resulting from insecure access to housing, food, health care, and safety. All children need supportive relationships and nurturing learning environments, but students facing additional stress have a greater need to be surrounded by caring adults who treat them as individuals with potential and inherent worth. When adults create this environment, children of every background can thrive at school, home and beyond. A recent report from the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development states that social, emotional, and academic skills are all essential to success in school, careers, and in life, and they can be effectively learned in the context of trusted ties to caring and competent adults. To address this need for social-emotional learning in a nurturing environment, our center created an experiential program combining Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) which has engaged 10 schools over the course of three years for full-day programming. Youth at risk learn SEL skills both in the classroom and in the arena to increase self and social awareness, relationship skills, decision-making, and self-regulation. These skills are developed using activities explicitly designed to augment the riding and groundwork sessions with the horses.
Our goal with the school-based program is to impart social and emotional skills so that individuals can navigate school and life with more success. The program has proven to help youth at risk to sustain independent living, improve cooperative skills, and enjoy a higher quality of life. Participation in the program has been shown to increase the likelihood that participants become functional members of society by teaching transferable skills that enhance personal, school, family, and community relationships. Outcomes for this program have been tracked through the use of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, which is a widely used measure and has shown to be psychometrically sound, with satisfactory reliability and validity. The program also developed a custom-designed monitoring tool to track outcomes. Results have shown statistically significant growth in the following areas: communication, self-confidence, and attitude. By exploring the themes of respect, empathy, self-respect and confidence, accountability, and conflict resolution the youth participating in our program are learning to navigate school and life with more success. These successes, in turn, radiate out to the greater community.
The information in this video represents the views and opinions of the presenter and does not necessarily represent or reflect the opinions of PATH Intl.