A volunteer at the PALS Adaptive Riding Center leads a young girl on a horse.
(Dave Novak / Vincennes PBS)
The PALS Adaptive Riding Center, just east of Bloomington, harnesses the healing power of horses to help people with disabilities.
The Adaptive Riding Center offers a variety of services for people.
“PALS has been a part of the Bloomington community for 23 years,” said Chris Herring, the executive director of the center. “Our founder, Fern Goodman, started the program when she identified a need for folks with disabilities for outdoor recreational activities.
“She pursued getting her certification by going out to California and brought her knowledge back here to start our organization.”
PALS Adaptive Riding Center executive director Chris Herring. (Dave Novak / Vincennes PBS)
This riding center is unlike your regular equine facility. PALS has the capability to adapt to a variety of different people facing a range of life challenges.
“We serve a wide variety of ages, and folks with social, emotional, cognitive and physical disabilities,” Herring said. “We also serve we have programming for certain special areas or groups like veterans, senior citizens at risk youth and also addiction recovery.”
Program Director Helen Siek is very hands on with the daily operations. She says the impact this facility generates is not just for the clients, but also for those who are willing to help.
“As a nonprofit, we rely on our volunteers to be able to provide the service that we give,” Siek said. “And the best way to get involved is the website. It's going to get you right to the right person, it's going to describe all of the positions.
“But we have a pretty extensive training program where they come to an orientation toward the barn, learn about horses if you don't already know about them, and how to be around them, to if you want to be someone that just cleans up around the barn or maintains it with us.”
The staff and volunteers get to see the horses in action, as well as witness the transformation of those who are part of this program.
“Riding isn't the only way that horses can contribute to our lives. Even just interacting and connecting with them; they're wonderful mirrors of our behavior,” Siek said. “So, we have a lot of ground classes and some of our riding classes where we use the horse to help teach kind of human interaction in a really soft, not therapy way.
"It's amazing watching that kind of click on for a population or an individual that was struggling to understand that when they do this, that affects the person or the horse in front of them, and those are moments that you really see this like amazing progression of their selves.”
All the horses at PALS have extensive training, which prepares them to interact with a wide variety of clients. These horses have the power to create a bond with everyone, no matter if they're on or off the horse.
A volunteer helps a young girl with a horse at the PALS Adaptive Riding Center. (Dave Novak / Vincennes PBS)
“We go through about a month to a month and a half checklist approval program where we get them used to the environment here,” Siek said. “It's very different therapeutic riding than even a lesson barn, where the horses need to be able to handle stressors that they wouldn't normally handle. So, we need to make sure number one, that the horses will handle that in a healthy happy way. So, they'll enjoy being touched all day long, they'll be OK with someone whose movement isn't always calm.
“And the other part of it is we need to confidently know if they are stressed or if they have something that startles them, what their reaction is naturally. We don't want to put a horse in a situation that is going to be dangerous or unsafe for them or us.”
Since its beginning in 2000, PALS said it has provided over 21,000 equine-assisted program and service hours, various educational programs, and camp opportunities.
