Learning to communicate with horses through body language helps reduce anxiety and improve social skills in vulnerable youngsters, a new study has found.
Researchers from Bournemouth University worked with TheHorseCourse in Weymouth to evaluate an intervention for 166 youngsters aged between 8 and 18 years old who experienced multiple mental health and behavioural issues, including anxiety. By the end of the course, they demonstrated an increased ability to remain calm and focused which had not been previously achieved through standard treatment.
The results have been published in the journal Mental Health and Wellbeing.
“The young people we worked with would not engage with mental health services or talk-based treatments so there is very little support available for them,” said Ann Hemingway, Professor of Public Health and Wellbeing at Bournemouth University, who led the study. “TheHorseCourse intervention provides a fun and positive experience for them where they don’t have to keep talking to people about what has happened to them, and they are able to connect with the horses,” she added.
TheHorseCourse works with rescue horses who may have suffered in the past and the researchers noted this helped the children build relationships with them by identifying with their own experiences.
During the programme, the youngsters learnt how to play a series of games with the horses, including pushing a ball, walking under hoops and jumping over small obstacles.
The course focuses on how to communicate with the horses through body language and understand their nature as prey animals. Instructors at TheHorseCourse taught the children to remain calm which is vital to gaining the trust of the animals and being able to play the games.
At the beginning of the intervention, the participants were measured on several attributes, including focus, calmness, responsibility and engagement in learning by their referrers. The researchers saw significant improvements across all attributes at the end of the course and again two months after the intervention had finished.
“Not all of these young people were calm at the beginning of the intervention, but this course is able to change that quickly and profoundly,” said Professor Hemingway. “Afterwards they had developed a new sense of calmness, and confidence and could express feelings of happiness and achievement, which may not be their experience of learning and development in their everyday lives,” she added.
Bournemouth University has been working with the Horse Course and other centres for several years to research the benefits of equine assisted learning for mental health and societal issues. This latest study builds on growing evidence of its success as an intervention, including how it can help reduce incidence of domestic violence.
Harriet Laurie MBE, CEO of the Horse Course, said “I think the interesting thing about this way of working is the ability to embed skills such as self-calming, maintaining a strong focus, even empathy without ever having a therapy conversation. We teach all these things as skills rather than seeing them as attributes of character – and it is the relationship-based horsemanship that demands these skills. This gives us a unique and powerful context – it is fun, it is challenging and it is rewarding – achieving beautiful communication with horses and getting psychosocial skills under the radar!”
Anyone interested in learning more about the university’s work on equine assisted services can contact Professor Hemingway on [email protected].
