All the horses who participate in the training exercises with first responders are, like Oldenburg-Westphalian Sport Horse CC, are current or former competition horses . Photo Credit: USEF
Saly Glassman has been involved with horses for most of her life. Well, some might say that horses have been her life—along with her family, her community involvement and her enormously successful 40-year career at Merrill Lynch.
“I was already kind of thinking about what am I going to do? This offer (from her partners) to buy me out really gave me an opportunity to think about what I wanted to do next.” Glassman is the sort of person human resources folks used to call a “self-starter.” Meaning, she doesn’t wait around wondering what she should do. “It was very important to me to be my own boss,” she says, “having worked for a large institution for almost 40 years.”
Typically, Glassman, who for decades competed at elite levels in show jumping as an adult amateur, thought about ways horses could play even larger roles in her life. She considered her interests, her education and her experiences. “I asked myself who needs help?” and who could benefit from her experience. Glassman was thinking about all this during an epochal winter of sickness, death and danger that would reverberate around the world and upend health care systems, government and virtually every aspect of life.
When COVID 19 began its lethal rampage across the world in early 2020, it revealed a lot about our health care and public safety institutions and the people at the heart of them. The stress pushed them all to the breaking point.
“It turns out the answer was obvious,” she says. “The people who need help are the people who are least likely to ask for it.” She said these are the first responders, people expected to run toward—not away from—crises. “The people who are trained to just keep saying they are fine because there is a stigma about getting mental health help when you’re a first responder. After all,” she says, “you’re supposed to be the person who really has it together so you can take care of everybody else.”
The dilemma faced by the people who are supposed to take care of everybody else, Glassman says, is that they don’t often follow what she calls “the oxygen mask rule.” It’s what every airline passenger hears in the safety briefing. “Put your own mask on first, before you help anyone else.” In other words, Glassman says, “If you don’t take care of yourself, how can you help us?”
The Things They Can’t Unsee
Glassman looked around at her Kindle Hill Farm in Whitpain Township, Montgomery County, PA, and thought about the space, the horses and the resources she could invest in the newly opened chapter in her life, a chapter she titled Kindle Hill Foundation. Its focus: Equine Assisted Learning and Therapy. (www.kindlehill.org)
The foundation has several programs in which horses are used in therapeutic settings. Kindle Hill’s staff includes equine assisted therapists, licensed professional counselors, equine specialists and a team of extremely motivated horses. Even the horses have extensive resumes of successful competition! For the first responders’ program, she consulted local police chiefs and experts who work with first responders dealing with profound stress.
One of the experts she cites is Kevin Gilmartin, author of Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement. In his publications and his seminars, he explains that the human brain is not wired to handle multiple traumas in short periods of time. Gilmartin is a behavior scientist specializing in law enforcement and public safety. He says that it’s not realistic to expect first responders to never be challenged by the things that they see, hear and experience.
While human beings adapt to profound losses and bearing witness to tragedies, these events are, for most people, thankfully comparatively rare—perhaps three or four in a lifetime. But Glassman says that first responders might experience 800 of these in their careers. “You can’t unsee or un-experience these things,” she says and so their aggregate impact builds up, continuing to challenge the paramedic or the police officer or the emergency room staff to keep saying things are fine. “If you think you’re fine and you want to be fine, but you’re really not fine, how’s that all going to end up?” She says it’s not a pretty picture. “The way it ends up is very easily demonstrated. Just take a pot of spaghetti, put it on boil put the lid on it and then go do some laundry or something.” Soon the spaghetti volcano erupts and proves that you’re not fine after all.
Incorporated in all the training for all first responders—including paramedics, firefighters and police officers—is de-escalation. “De-escalation is one of the skills that is critical for survival,” Glassman says. Explaining that it’s a skill that everyone should cultivate, she cites the example of bad service at a restaurant. “If you order pasta at a restaurant and specify gluten-free, and the waiter brings regular pasta, you should feel safe to complain. It’s not likely that the waiter will take out a gun and shoot you.” For law enforcement, it’s different, she says. “We are not dealing with violence and repeated trauma in our jobs. The risk for law enforcement is greater. The failure to de-escalate could be fatal.”
Going Out on a Limb
As she was developing her program, Glassman first reached out to Whitpain Township’s Police Chief, Kenneth Lawson. “I said I wanted to develop a program for the first responder community with a strong emphasis on law enforcement,” she told him.
“Will you work with me and kind of go out on a limb here on an out-of-the-box idea?” She told him that she knew there was a possibility that the pioneers in this venture might suffer some criticism and even possibly ridicule.
He told her it was a great idea. “You know I am your guy and I’m going to help you.” He connected her to officers in Montgomery, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Philadelphia counties. “As a result,” she says “I was able to develop relationships with a lot of different officers. Working together we developed a training program that focuses on de-escalation.”
Glassman says that since the program began, she and her team have worked with more than 700 individuals. David Duffy, Chief of Police in Upper Gwynedd, says the program has made a big difference in his organization. “The officers enjoyed spending time together in a type of environment and training that was very different than typical police courses,” he says. “Communication among the officers improved.”
The Kindle Hill team has been trained in Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement (ABLE), Integrating Communications, Assessments and Tactics (ICAT), and Resiliency Training for Law Enforcement. Glassman is an associate member of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association and has additional training in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM). The training, credentials and experience of the team translate into better outcomes for participants. “The staff makes the training relatable to police work and the stressors of the job, as well as ways to realistically manage those stressors,” Duffy says.
And the horses? As therapy partners, they are both icebreakers and guides. “Even officers who were unfamiliar or not particularly interested in horses,” Duffy says “enjoyed interacting with them and learning about their different traits.”
Horses, as Glassman has been reminding everyone who is willing to listen, have a wealth of inspiration to share. Inspiration that can motivate, encourage and comfort. Author Ilan Shamir wrote “Advice from a Horse.” It’s an elegant, wise summary of what horse people know well. “Take life’s hurdles in stride. Loosen the reins. Be free spirited. Keep the burrs from under your saddle. Carry your friends when they need it. Keep stable. Gallop to greatness.”