Horse therapy helps people find balance
Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter
A love of horses and a desire to help people feel better about themselves was a motivational factor for one Strathmore woman to start her own business. Kari Fulmek trained in St. Albert, Sask., with the Cartier Equine Learning Centre, working hard to get her certificate and open Spiritual Equine Connection a few short months ago.
“There is no riding with this program, because riding is just lessons, this way they actually have to work with the horse to go through those life lessons,” said Fulmek.
She didn’t think she could do it at first, but as she continued to progress through her training, she realized it was definitely worthwhile, and she knew she had found her calling. Unlike other equine assisted learning programs, Spiritual Equine Connection, located three minutes west of Strathmore, is a building block program.
Fulmek prefers to work with groups, even if it is just two people.
“It’s the two people working together and through that conflict they have in trying to figure out how to go through the obstacles, that’s where the conflict arises, this is where your horse is the teacher. Because your horse is not going move or do anything until you two have figured out what’s going to happen,” said Fulmek.
When the child learns what he or she needs to do to help the horse, then the horse will do what’s needed, too. They spend five minutes before going to work with the horse, figuring out what the objective is for the day. At the end of the lesson they debrief.
“When we debrief it’s things that we’ve learned for that day, besides the objective, like what did you learn working with your teammate, with your horse…what were the areas that you gained.”
Participants of the program always do a building relationship block first, grooming the horse and allowing the person and animal to grow a little comfortable with each other. After they pick a horse, they have to figure out how to get through the obstacles. There are four choices.
“There’s no right or wrong when they’re doing this, this is the nice part when they’re coming here. It’s their journey, not anyone else reprimanding them,” said Fulmek.
Kevin Muencrath has known Fulmek for a number of years, so he knew about what she was planning to do.
“I really didn’t understand what it was. I talked to Kari about it one day and I said, you know I should really bring Leah out there because I think it might be beneficial,” said Muencrath.
Leah, Kevin’s daughter, has three siblings and is the youngest of twins, which means there can often be sibling rivalry.
“It’s a great experience for her and I think she gets a lot of benefits from it. Because they control the situation not so much the kid, so when they don’t want to go, they don’t go. So you have to learn to communicate and I think that’s the biggest thing with this therapy is the body language and the communication between the person or the kid and the animal,” said Muencrath.
Leah has only been to a handful of classes at Spiritual Equine Connection, but already her parents have noticed a change in her demeanor. Muencrath said she seems to be softening a bit and though she has always been a social girl, the therapy teaches her about teamwork and seems to be helping her with life skills.
“Her twin brother has been out there a couple times and he really thought that was a cool thing, so I mean it’s got a value to everyone right, not just people that have other behavior issues or whatever, it’s a thing all kids can enjoy,” said Muencrath.
One of the parts he likes the most about the program is that it is a team effort and while building skills with the horse, it makes them also learn to communicate and work better with other people. Muencrath thinks it could help with the bullying, and he doesn’t think it’s something just for kids, he feels it could be beneficial to anyone.
“I think this therapy can be applied in so many different ways. You don’t ride them, that’s the beauty of it, you don’t even have to ride them. You just have to be compassionate and care for them,” said Muencrath.
Currently Fulmek has six horses for the program. It took her a year and a half to find them. They range from ages 12 to 26 and are mainly quarter horses.
“I can’t just take any horses out of the blue. They need to have been around many people, many situations. So horses that have been out there and been in the world of competition stuff is really good too,” said Fulmek.
There are other Equine Assisted Learning programs in Alberta, but they are not building block programs. As far as she knows she is the only one in the area who does the building block program. She said kids who are doing well and achieving the things they would like to achieve don’t need her program, but kids who are low functioning or have bullying issues, those are the kids she wants to see taking her program.
To find out more about the program go to www.equineconnection.ca.