Kristen de Marco of Gateway HorseWorks with Disney, one of the organization’s “therapists”. Photo by Suzanne Bush.
The coronavirus has shredded just about every safety net that exists in America. With stunning efficiency, this deadly contagion has killed thousands, and upended the nation’s health care system. In most states, citizens have become all too familiar with the pandemic’s mantra: social distancing, wash your hands, don’t touch your face. Social distancing, on its surface, seems a benign reminder to respect other peoples’ personal spaces. But on a larger scale, social distancing closes restaurants, hair salons, theaters, shopping malls, retail stores and dozens of other enterprises that employ people and serve thousands of others.
Business owners worry about their employees, furloughed, frightened and quarantined, and they wonder what new reality they’ll encounter when—and if—they can reopen their businesses and factories.
Faced with shortages of everything from flour and chocolate to toilet paper, consumers are finding new things to worry about every day—from the mundane to the monumental. They once had jobs, incomes, health—now all are looming question marks that only time will answer.
Stories of hope and despair abound; but behind the headlines about the toilet paper hoarders and bending the curve of infections, there are less obvious stories—where many of the “employees” are non-human workers.
So, here’s something else to consider.
Happy Therapy
Sherri Briggs runs Compassionate Friends Therapeutic Riding Center in Medford, NJ. Her organization serves 30+ clients, mostly youngsters on the Autism spectrum, she says. Closed, like so many other “nonessential” businesses, Briggs is navigating a new, unsettling reality. “I can’t even imagine their parents right now,” She says, noting how important her horses are to her young clients. “This is something the kids think about. They really looked forward to horseback riding as a happy thing for them. Their happy therapy.” The riders learn so much about themselves, and about interacting with others. They develop strength and endurance, self-confidence and improved hand-eye coordination.
The program is suspended indefinitely now, but Briggs can’t exactly furlough the six horses engaged in the therapy program. They still need food, as well as routine care. Without money coming in from the clients and their families, things are tight.
Briggs says that she has heard from a couple of people who have provided sponsorship money for her program. They said they understand she has not been able to provide the services they’ve sponsored, but they want her to keep the money. The support is gratifying, but she’s worried about her clients, missing their therapy. And her volunteers, who are deeply committed to the clients and the horses.
“I’ve gotten hurt before and had to take a couple of months off, but nothing like this. Who knows when this will be over.”
Thinking Outside the Stall
At Gateway HorseWorks in Berwyn, PA Kristen de Marco has taken a different path, albeit an unconventional one. Her organization provides equine assisted therapy for clients from social service programs, the juvenile justice system, the Salvation Army’s anti-trafficking initiative and programs aimed at helping abused and homeless women. Equine assisted therapy is one of the newest tools mental health professionals are using to help individuals find different ways to see the issues affecting their lives. Unlike the program Briggs’ organization provides, de Marco’s clients interact with horses on the ground, along with a licensed therapist and a certified equine specialist.
“We suspended in person sessions on March 12,” de Marco explains. “We spent the next week and a half getting up and running with tele-mental health.” Yes. That is what it sounds like. Tele-health is all the rage these days when patients can’t get in to see their doctors face-to-face. Instead, they “visit” their doctors via webcam or facetime.
“All of our sessions are online, so we’re able to use Zoom for Healthcare, and our barn manager is at the farm with the horses on live stream.” Zoom is the nascent web-based service that is becoming the go-to solution for businesses trying to hold remote staff meetings, isolated friends hosting virtual cocktail parties and, yes, doctors seeing non-urgent patients.
“While this certainly won’t replace in-person sessions,” de Marco says, “we still think there’s a lot of connection and value we can offer.”
She says that the number of clients has dropped significantly, because many of the people who had been using Gateway’s services don’t have access to computers, or good internet connections. “A lot of our clients are vulnerable folks in places where we can’t do video conferencing,” she says.
Inspired by Acts of Kindness
“We were so inspired watching so many people step up and help in any way they could. We have resources that can help people in the front lines,” de Marco says. That’s why she and her staff have decided to offer free tele-mental health services to people like grocery store workers, EMTs, police, health care professionals—people who are working tirelessly to keep the rest of us safe. We wanted to make these resources free because so many people are struggling financially, and we thought it would be just too much for some people to make one more payment.”
“The next pandemic,” she says, “will be the mental health issues from the collective trauma we’re already going through.” She and her team are committed to use whatever tools they have to help those on the front lines today. She says they’re offering the program before they’ve even secured funding for it.
“This experience is humbling in a way where we feel so out of control and helpless. What we keep reminding ourselves as a team is to control what we can control. We can choose to do something, like giving back.”
The Toll on Programs Hard to Measure
Many of these special equestrian programs operate on thin margins. A crisis such as this one, with so many unanswerable questions, could be the coup de grâce for some of the smaller, more vulnerable programs. It’s apparent that several therapeutic equestrian programs in the region have simply stopped answering their phones, leaving the fates of the programs unknowable.
Briggs, of Compassionate Friends, says that—even as she and her volunteers mourn the suspension of the therapeutic riding program—they understand that someday it will be “normal” again. But it’s a different story for the horses. “I miss the students, and I just miss the buzz around the barn,” she says. “And my horses are showing it, too. They’re being little stinkers. They’re used to all the attention, being groomed, being loved on and getting all their treats. They’re supposed to be around people, and here they’re not. They miss the time with them.”
“We’re seeing some of the best in humanity and in our way we want to be there to support people,” de Marco says. “We’re all going to struggle to maintain the normal expenses of farrier, hay, straw, feed and medical care for our animals.”
Both Compassionate Friends and Gateway HorseWorks are non-profit organizations, as are the many other therapeutic equestrian programs in the region. To find out more about what these organizations need, check their websites:
Gatewayhorseworks.org or email kristen@gatewayhorseworks.org
Cftrc.org or email sbriggs@cftrc.org