What Are We Doing to Our Children?

What are we doing to our children? Not a question I expected from Carol Young.

Carol is the CEO at Healing Strides of Virginia, an accredited equine-assisted therapy facility south of Roanoke. Until meeting her, I’d no idea such a place existed. I’d no idea horses could heal broken men and women and build confidence in kids struggling with all manner of physical and emotional issues.

“God has shown his love through horses.” Carol told me when we talked on the phone. “Horses see you as you are in the moment. There is no judgment.”

So, why then did Carol ask: “What are we doing to our children?” Didn’t her nonprofit cater to at-risk children? 

She explained and then told me a whole lot more, impressing me with her commitment to helping hurting people regardless of what’s happening in the world.

The Quintessential Horse Lover 

Carol hasn’t always worked in equine-assisted therapy. She once owned a design and construction company. When the economy crashed in 2008, decimating the market for custom log homes, this entrepreneur and mom of eight had to recreate herself and find something else to do.

She discovered Healing Strides. 

As Carol explained, horses had always occupied her world. She rode them. She owned, trained, and brokered them. But even she had never heard of the equine-assisted therapy industry when she started volunteering 16 years ago.

Little did she know then, but God had prepared her for what has become her life’s work. Close to bankruptcy, Healing Strides ultimately turned the management reins over to her. “I went to volunteer, and it turned into this amazing thing,” she said. 

And Healing Strides hasn’t been the same since. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, this facility is now one of the largest of its kind on the East Coast.

What is Equine Therapy?

To fully appreciate the facility’s value in our broken world, Carol first had to educate me. As I said, I knew nothing about equine-assisted therapy, which in a nutshell is emotional healing through interaction with horses. 

“Horses accept us as we are. It’s a beautiful thing because our world is so harsh. I see veterans who come in all jacked up,” Carol said. But time spent around one of the facility’s 28 horses (including one miniature donkey named Don-Key-Oatie), acts as a balm. 

Science supports the observation. Research shows, for example, that the heart rates of humans and horses sync when they spend time with another. That means someone who is feeling anxious as evidenced by an increased heart rate will calm down, studies have revealed. 

Horses can do this because of their social skills as herd animals. Hypersensitive to the tiniest sound, smell, or movement, which could indicate a life-threatening predator, they’ve learned to interpret situations flawlessly, including the ability to read facial expressions and intentions behind them. 

The Story At Hand

Getting back to the story—what are we doing to our children?—the question Carol asked.

Four years ago, the world went a bit crazy. Lockdowns. School closures. Bankruptcy. The Internet is rife with studies showing the adverse repercussions of these Covid-related policies on people, especially kids who experienced rising levels of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and self-harm. 

She too had become aware of the uptick in suicide rates, the reason she’d asked the rhetorical question in the first place. “People started coming out of the woodwork,” she said. “They didn’t have anything that was normal.” 

The Path Forward for Healing Strides 

So, Carol acted. She changed her policy. 

Before Covid, she offered therapeutic services to only those with a diagnosis of PTSD, autism, anxiety, and neurological injuries, to name a few. She opened her doors to everyone, including victims of child sexual abuse and other traumas.

She enhanced the facility’s protocols so that Healing Strides could serve as many people as possible while protecting both her human and equine staff from disease. Diagnosis or not, anyone needing a chance to commune in the outdoors among creatures that didn’t judge would get that opportunity.

“God has prepared me for this moment,” she continued, looking back on her life and experiences . . . her entrepreneurial spirit and love for horses. Her desire to help those facing challenges. “All these little moments. He trained me for Healing Strides . . .”

What are we doing to our children? A question we should all ask ourselves. Thank God for people like Carol and her equine staff. They are the heroes in this story.