HEARTS LANDING RANCH

"It is often the equine therapy program that provides the most effective breakthroughs in the restoration of the emotional health and self-worth of troubled teens."
- Riding Home, Tim Hayes

WHAT WE DO:
At Hearts Landing, we create healthy activities in a ranch environment with opportunities to learn life-long skills, communicate and build self-esteem. This is through Equine-Assisted Learning and Psychotherapy (EAP).

EAP is evidence based mental health therapy using horses with a therapy team. The Therapy Team, includes a mental health professional and an Equine Specialist, write ground based curriculum with activities that engage the horses and human relationship.

"Human emotions can be complicated and challenging and for many people, they can be difficult to identify and name or even feel." -(T. Hayes) And a healing goal, "To grow into a healthy, functioning member of society, a child must learn by example to feel, identify by name, and express simple to complex emotions."

Without a strong fabric of family, community ties, direction and personal identity, teens are seeking attention and searching for love and validation in all the wrong places. These kids often fall prey to sex traffickers, online bullying, substance abuse and some even decide suicide is the best answer.

We no longer need to separate ourselves to work out these complex emotions. In fact working it out alone is impossible. We are meant to be in community together, to express ourselves, not be judged but have a family, a community as a place to be safe and risk real relationships. Hearts Landing Ranch facilitates this, "Building a Community to Reach a Community", to restore the wounded and broken-hearted.

It is believed that if these healthy relational skills are not learned by teenage years, two unhealthy mechanisms will be used to deal with complex, human emotions:
• ACT IT OUT (violence, crime, unwanted pregnancy, trouble at school or home) or
• HOLD IT IN (positive facade, depression, low self-esteem, suicide).
Also in Riding Home, Tim Hayes finds "...equine therapy as a valuable method that can initiate powerfully psychological healing for at-risk youths in 'unusually short periods of time.'"
Suicide is the third leading cause of death for youth between the ages of 10 and 24, resulting in 4,513 deaths in 2008.
Numbers vary slightly, but in general for high school students over 50% use alcohol, close behind is marijuana (before legalization) and 25% use prescription drugs.

SOME CHALLENGES FELT:
• Hopelessness
• Emotionally Devastated
• Attempted Suicide
• Pregnancy
• Abuse
• Positive Facade
• Struggling
• Difficulty Relating to Family & Other People
• Unstable Family Environment
• Alcohol and Drug Use/Abuse
• Suffer with Low Self-Esteem
• Difficulty Developing Healthy, Transparent Relationships
• Poor Self Awareness
• Never Talk or Tell Anyone
• Difficult to Identify, Name or Feel
• Difficulty Expressing Anger
• Physical and/or Emotional Trauma
• Little or No Safe Social Structures
• Poor Decision Making Skills
SOME CAUSES:
• Over consumption of Electronics
• Less Deep, meaningful relationships
• Lack of Purpose
• Increased divorce rates
• Increased Single parents / never married
• Families separated due to work /travel
• Less Emphasis on Family Community Activities
• More Adult tension and National strife