Rockford Park District showcases healing power of horses with new equine learning programs

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Before Monday, Layla Bell’s experience with horses started and ended with pony rides.

The 12-year-old Rockfordian got a new perspective on Monday inside the Perks Family Equine Center at Lockwood Park, 5201 Safford Road, where she learned to attach a lead rope to a horse’s halter and guide it through a series of obstacles.

There was one additional obstacle for Bell: She was blindfolded.

While listening to directions from fellow classmates in the Rockford Park District’s equine assisted learning program, the blindfolded Bell carefully stepped around and over obstacles like traffic cones and pool noodles while guiding a quarter horse named Journey through the course.

“It kind of helped you trust the horse and also trust our teammates because they led you through the thing,” Bell said after leading the gelding through the course. “It’s good to get a connection with the horse before you jump into riding it.”

For Bell, who attended Monday’s class with friend India Barnes, 11, the class is a fun outside-of-school activity and a way to socialize. For the Park District, exercises like the blindfolded obstacle course provide a host of other benefits youth participants may not see at first.

They say the programs promote confidence, communication, leadership and can help with emotional regulation as teens handle a variety of issues that life brings their way.

“It helps soothe people. They get happy because the horses are happy working with people,” said Ashlyn Redlin, 10, of Lake Geneva, an experienced rider who was participating in class Monday. “It really calms people and helps them find the joy in small things. That’s what it helped me do.”

The district considers the programs so beneficial that one of its chief reasons for building the new indoor equine center was to offer programs that could help kids cope with a host of social, emotional and mental health needs. The center, which welcomed its first youth program participants this past summer, also offers equine assisted psychotherapy in partnership with a licensed mental health professional. That allows youth to work on their mental health in an environment that feels recreational.

“Everything here is a multifunctional open space,” said Kayla Tilly, program manager at the Perks Family Equine Center. “So as the kids come through they don’t feel like they’re going to the counselor or the doctor’s office. It feels like a barn and a welcome, open friendly facility.”

The Perks Family Equine Center opened last year to provide 35,500 square feet of indoor equestrian space, including eight horse stalls, an arena, a climate-controlled breakout area for horses, offices, classrooms, wash bays, a tack room, laundry, consultation rooms, bathrooms, outdoor pens and other multifunctional areas.

The district showed off the classes on Monday, while kids were off school for Presidents Day, to illustrate its benefits and promote the availability of its classes.

The classes can be a youth recreational activity or serve a larger purpose. The district hopes to serve youth and teens who may be recovering from trauma or living with mental health issues or developmental disabilities.

The horses, Tilly said, help participants learn foundational social and emotional skills that help them get more in touch with their own feelings.

“We can utilize those emotions and those behaviors in the horses to then bring out and talk about the participant’s emotions — what they’re thinking and they’re feeling. It actively personifies it,” Tilly said. “Then they can look inside themselves and think, ‘What am I thinking? What am I feeling and how is that affecting the horse?’ It’s an immediate feedback for them to recognize their own emotions.”

Three class groups, covering ages 8-11, 12-17 and 18-25, started their six-week run earlier this month. More groups start in April, June and August.

Since starting this past summer, more than 100 youth have participated so far, Tilly said.

The district is partnered with psychotherapist Kevin Polky of Four Corners Wellness for counseling services through its equine assisted psychotherapy programs.

The program is supported through $1.3 million in funding over three years from the Winnebago County Mental Health Board.

Park District officials say the connection to horses can teach youth how to listen and act without speaking, and how to express themselves without worrying about embarrassment.

“Horses are herd animals and they’re very similar to humans where they’re very in tuned to their emotions and their surrounding,” Tilly said. “Because of that, they’re very highly in tuned to your emotions and how you feel and what you’re thinking. …

“It’s really the horses that do most of the magic.”

Participate | Equine Assisted Learning

What: Equine Assisted Learning programs consist of social and emotional education involving horse interaction and handling in a group setting.

Where: Perks Family Equine Center at Lockwood Park, 4989 Safford Road, Rockford

Fee: $75-100

Register: Call 815-987-8828 or 815-987-8800; go online to lockwoodpark.com or visit Carlson Ice Are, 4150 N. Perryville Road, Loves Park or UW Health Sports Factory, 305 S. Madison St., Rockford

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas