Kids learn to ride, care for horses through Lowell police program
TEWKSBURY - Lowell Police officers went down on the farm to interact with kids in their community. Through grant money and the police department, the children were able to learn how to ride and take care of horses. The goal is not only for the students to build social and emotional skills while working with the animals, but to build trust with police.
"I'm just hoping to have a great experience, and the kids to have fun ultimately just being here," said Lowell Police Superintendent Greg Hudon. "When the community trusts us they are more willing to share information, and it builds that transparency that we try to have with our community."
Therapeutic animal farm
Strongwater Farm is a therapeutic animal farm. The horses here go through months of training for their therapy jobs, and many held other jobs before coming here.
For the horses, this can be considered a retirement job.
"We have a number of horses with different characteristics and personalities, and we try to match them with the group they are serving," said Joni Bryan, Executive Director of Strongwater Farm. "We talk a lot about boundaries and consent. The horses having their own feelings and space. They are learning things like emotional regulation and really how to relate to an environment."
Kids learning important lessons
Two of the kids in the program, Avalysse and Juliana, worked to groom and lead a horse named Becky. Through the program, Juliana said she has learned to be a bit more careful and gracious of her space.
Avalysse grew up around horses in Puerto Rico, and her mother is a 911 dispatcher. Both girls have learned lessons that can carry them through life regardless of if they are communicating to humans or animals.
"To not go in my personal bubble, please and thank you, respectfully," Avalysse said.
While WBZ was there, the kids had yet to learn how to ride a horse. That will happen in the coming days, and is when the true test of trust happens.
"Kids don't have the tools to deal with what we do with the trauma, and the tools to heal ourselves," Bryan said. "What trauma does is it disconnects us from ourselves. [The horses] trick us into reconnecting with our emotions, and we find they are safe. They trick us into reconnecting with trust."
