Hi everyone!

Well, we just had another graduation of two boys from our Running with Mustangs program this week, and it was amazing. We created this curricula for the Gang Violence Prevention Program of Buncombe County, which is funded by the North Carolina Governor's Crime Commission and is a collaborative effort with several Buncombe County organizations, including the Mediation Center, our non-profit sister organization. Running with Mustangs offers Equine Assisted Psychotherapy, Natural Horsemanship, Vocational Training, and Spoken-Word Poetry for adjudicated and/or incarcerated youth. (Learn more about Running with Mustangs by clicking here.)

The closing/graduation is always a special time, in which the boys' therapists, case workers and other special people from the Youth Development Center come to see what the boys have been working on for the past 8 weeks/16 sessions at the farm. During the graduation, the boys "freestyle" their horse skills with their horse partner, and also read a few of their poems from their Spoken-Word Poetry work aloud. There is rarely a dry eye in the audience, and the whole Horse Sense team gets out to cheer 'em on.

Well, I just got the feedback forms from the boys, which they complete at the end of their treatment, and was blown away by what I read. (We ask all our clients to fill out feedback forms, so we can improve our skills and services.) One of the questions we ask is: What has changed for you since you began coming to Horse Sense? One of the two boys wrote:

"I used to listen to my thoughts; now my thoughts listen to me."

The other young man's feedback form had an equally remarkable comment. When asked what he had learned in his time with Horse Sense, his answer was simple, and profound:

"I am important."

I took these feedback forms from room to room, from desk to stall in the Horse Sense office & barn, reading these amazing sentences to each staff member. Today I'm here at the North American Handicapped Riding Association Conference (NARHA) in Hartford, CT, and I'm sharing those sentiments with attendees as I help out at the Strides to Success booth. I'm telling it to anyone who is interested in the work that we do in this field who will listen.

Why? Because this is what we do it all for. This kind of change and these kind of results justify every single thing we've done as we have struggled to bring Equine Assisted Psychotherapy and Equine Assisted Learning to Western North Carolina. And it's not just us. We as a field of Equine Assisted professionals all over are getting these kinds of results every day.

So these feedback forms are definitely going in my "Undespair" folder, the file I reach for when I'm knee-deep in grants and budgets and I can't quite remember what I'm doing it all for. And I hope it offers you the same inspiration for plugging away.

More power to us all! May the effects of our work and practice continue to ripple...

Shannon Knapp
Horse Sense of the Carolinas, Inc
HorseSenseOtc.com