The ranch experience helps youth appreciate the environment and nature.
When life deals us more than our fair share of blows we often seek a place of refuge where we may stop, reflect, and consider how we can move forward past the difficulties and the pain that so often follows. But what does a child do when that place of refuge doesn’t exist and he or she hasn’t yet developed the skills needed to cope with these troubles?
Jeff Lewis has a long history of working with troubled youth. He is also a horseman and holds many years of experience working with these equine
beauties and marvelling at their innate ability to bond and create lasting friendships with their human companions. So it seems only fitting that Lewis has combined his two passions, and created a place of refuge for troubled youth where they can find hope and a place to turn their lives around. He calls his ranch “Whispered Dreams”.
Whispered Dreams, Lewis says, refers to the hopes and dreams of young people that get crushed and buried beneath the onslaught of life’s circumstances; the hopes and dreams that are often tossed aside because nobody believes in the dreams or the children themselves.
Lewis believes horses provide the best therapy. If a kid is a bully and pushes a horse around, there is going to be an immediate cause and effect reaction.
“A horse is like a mirror,” Lewis says. "It reacts immediately to a situation and it doesn’t hide its emotions." This works well for youth whose troubled lives have brought them face to face with the judicial system, a system, Lewis admits, that is slow to provide consequences for negative behaviour and may, indirectly, contribute to a continuation down the wrong path.
Lewis’ years as a social worker, and a child and youth mental health and addiction worker, has made him a firm believer that troubled youth need to “work on themselves”. If he focuses simply on counselling children he believes there is only limited success. “Children need to take ownership of their lives,” he states. “They need to learn how to re-focus. They need to learn how to move forward. And they need to realize that they are worth it.” Day to day situations at the ranch and on the trail are used to promote character, teach life skills, create a healthy practice of self- examination and interpersonal skills, and build self esteem.
While working with the horses at Whispered Dreams, children and teens not only learn basic horse care and riding skills, but they also gain a great deal of confidence. "It’s quite a feat for a teen who has never been around a horse before to be able to lead a horse, care for a horse, and ride a horse."
Lewis provides equine assisted counselling on several levels. For youth designated at risk a one to two week program at the ranch allows children who have been removed from a situation deemed as detrimental to their well being, to experience one-on-one work in a home setting.
Lifeskills programs utilizing horses and the outdoors as a teaching tool are offered to groups for 2 hour, 3 day or 5 day sessions, while more intensive leadership/lifeskills programs are offered in a two week pack trip at Ya Ha Tinda Ranch Park in the Canadian Rockies.
Lewis speaks passionately about these trips. The program provides one-on-one and group work sessions covering such issues as depression, suicide, lifeskills, character and addictions, all while riding and enjoying the beautiful scenery of mountains, valleys, lakes, streams, flowers and trees.
Lewis also offers wilderness immersion retreats where youth learn how to make fires for warmth and cooking, design shelters such as lean-to’s, learn how to canoe, find food in the wilderness and master many other skills necessary to experience the wilderness comfortably and safely with as little “extras” as possible. In short, it provides a chance for youth to live off the land and develop a flow with nature, and to become in tune with it.
Lewis says the youth often tell him that the trips have given them chances to re- focus, especially when their lives were messed up and going out of control. They’ve also told him that they often use the lessons they’ve learned on these trips to get back on track when their lives are disrupted.
With kids being raised in a world saturated with video games and media, Lewis admits there are many challenges that must be overcome when the teens set out on these trips. “At the beginning of the trips I sometimes hear complaints that the youth are bored because they’re missing their access to Facebook and social media. But once the wilderness starts to seep into them and they learn to take advantage of it, they learn to appreciate the environment and all it has to offer.”
And that is a good thing. Kids spending time with horses, learning and growing, all in a beautiful setting. It can’t help but do wonders.
For more information go to www.wdranch.ca
