GLENEAYRE EQUESTRIAN PROGRAM, INC

Gleneayre aims to serve greater segments of our community and raise awareness of the effectiveness of equine-assisted programs. Our programs are structured to provide both preventive and recovery activities for children and adults with social-emotional and behavioral challenges, and we aim to provide these services to as many people as possible.
With the recent recognition that social competence and emotional regulation, not just literacy skills or ability to understand numbers, are strong predictors of success in school and later success in work and independent living, the benefits of animal-assisted therapeutic programs are becoming even more relevant. Horses have proven particularly effective therapeutic partners, and our experiential equine-facilitated programs for at-risk youth are in line with emerging best practices for addressing social and emotional challenges. Gleneayre’s goals are to maintain our level of individual attention to each of our participants while expanding the capacity and range of equine-facilitated learning and mental health opportunities we offer. We aim to assure that our staff includes personnel with the qualifications to allow our students to achieve their horsemanship and riding goals and learn positive character traits, executive decision-making abilities, and study skills necessary to succeed.
The needs of the Working Students have grown in ways reflective of current societal pressures: lower-income parents are working longer hours, schools are challenged to teach children of different learning capabilities, and extracurricular programs have been cut. With the growing need for more individual attention to our Working Students, we are seeking additional staff with a background in educational techniques that promote learning in at-risk youth. As part of our current program, students make progress reports on their riding and their horses’ well-being, as well as keep journals about their experiences at the stable and beyond. These materials give our team insight into our students’ reading and math skills, academic progress, and family situations. With additional staff, our team can provide more direct support to each of our students.
We have also made it a goal to find a mental health professional to lead our Equine Facilitated Mental Health Program, which is not a task we take lightly, as this individual must be certified and adept at both traditional therapies as well as demonstrate exemplary equine experience.

Our strategic planning focuses on hiring and retaining qualified personnel to enhance the services we offer and to accomplish the outreach that is at the heart of our vision to bring the healing power of horses to as many people as possible.
Equine activities offer ways to understand one’s own and others’ emotions and behaviors. The horse-rider connection developed in our programs has proven to help participants reconnect emotionally, socially, and physically with themselves and others through horses. With information from students’ parents, guidance counselors, and IEPs, we are able to direct the natural effects of the bonding between horse and student to open up whole new realms of connection that can be transferred to relationships and situations in all aspects of our students’ life experiences. With the social changes that affect our participants and the exciting research being carried out in our field, we strive to keep our instructors’ certifications relevant and up-to-date and our herd of horses appropriate to the needs of program.
Fundraising plans for our programming focus on generating diversified revenue streams through appeal campaigns, corporate support, major-donor cultivation, horse shows, and special events. We actively cultivate corporate and local business sponsorships and in-kind partnerships. We employ a variety of cost-saving practices such as buying supplies in bulk, using energy cost-saving measures, securing discounted and pro-bono equine professional services, and soliciting donations of horses and equipment.
Each fall, our annual Gleneayre Horse Show and Hunter Derby benefits our programs through entry fees, a silent auction, vendor fees, and in-kind donations of products and services. This event serves not only as a major fundraiser but also as a showcase for our students and as a community festival. Riders from other stables participate in the horse show and derby; spectators are invited to see our students demonstrate their riding skills; local artisans are given are opportunity to market their crafts; and a children’s area offers activities for the whole family. We are also pursuing various grant opportunities.

Gleneayre is one of only a handful of equine-assisted facilities in southern New Jersey and the only program in our immediate area. While some of the facilities offer services for at-risk youth among therapeutic riding programs for people with disabilities, Gleneayre alone offers at-risk youth a “work to ride” program that teaches vocational and life skills through chores around the farm in exchange for riding and caring for a horse assigned to each student. Participants can enter the program as young as age 10 and are continually enrolled in the program until their thirteenth year of school. The program includes mentoring and school support. No other equine program offers such a holistic approach to students’ well-being and such long-term investment in their academic and vocational success on top of their equestrian achievements.
Gleneayre’s equine-facilitated learning programs are taught by our certified instructors and are based on an activity-based curriculum created by Strides for Success, a leading organization in the equine-assisted learning and therapies field. Our group programs are created to focus on each participant’s or group’s specific issues, which include PTSD, depression, family strife, personal health challenges, and community violence. The envisioned new and expanded programs have taken on new urgency as our reputation and expertise have grown, increasing demand from outside and motivation among our staff to adapt our equine-assisted experiential curricula to reach a wider range of individuals and groups.

Since 1999, we have seen the success of our program through the achievements of our participants: better attendance and performance in school, good life choices in the turbulent teenage years, residual positive effects on other family members, and growth into empathetic, competent young adults with life skills beyond riding and horsemanship. We have been featured in national equestrian publications and have gained corporate sponsorships that have promoted our programs. With our track record of success over 20 years of running our programs, we aim to serve as inspiration for other equestrian organizations to develop similar “work to ride” and equine-facilitated learning programs to serve at-risk youth in other regions. Having set the standard for our type of program and targeting new populations are priorities in order for us to maintain our high standards.
Gleneayre’s equine-facilitated learning programs taught by our certified instructors are based on an activity-based curriculum created by Strides for Success, a leading organization in the equine-assisted learning and therapies field. Our group programs are created to focus on each participant’s or group’s specific issues, which include PTSD, depression, family strife, personal health challenges, and community violence.
We seek to expand the number and population of youth served in our current group EFL and Working Student programs by meeting the requests for services we are presently understaffed to provide. We aim to adapt our EFL program for a broader range of youth and adults who can benefit from equine-assisted services.
We also hope to hire a mental health professional with exemplary equine experience to lead our Equine Facilitated Mental Health Program. This program has proven to be successful in helping our community in the past, as our sessions are experiential in nature and participants learn about themselves and others by participating in activities with the horses, and then processing (or discussing) feelings, behaviors, and patterns.