The Feldman Ecopark’s Centre of Psychosocial Rehabilitation resumed lessons on equine-assisted therapy. “The Equine-assisted Therapy for Everyone” project is implemented in the Feldman Ecopark for years.
The head of the psychological service of the Centre Tetiana Aliieva told that lessons are conducted for children with special needs. Children with communication violations, delay in speech development and autistic diseases undergo two weeks’ aggressive treatment.
“If the diseases refer to physical range, then the emphasis is placed on course duration. Such programmes are one-two months run” — Tatiana Aliieva summed up.
Seven-year-old Nikita suffering from autism became the first participant in this season. This is the third year he’s been running equine-assisted therapy. The boy’s mother told that there had been significant changes during this period. “The lessons bring mass of positive emotions. – It is a large impetus for the child autist as such children are unemotional, they keep everything bottled up” — she noted.
Nikita grizzles at the arena with a horse. The specialists of the Centre help the boy to get into a saddle, and his face expands in a smile. In a few minutes the babble of birds dilutes sonorous laugh of a child.
Nikita’s mother has told that three years ago he was afraid even to get close to a horse, and now the boy surely sits in a saddle. Nikita likes lessons; he prepares for them and later remembers them.
He intends to attend the equine-assisted therapy lessons further. The boy’s family is convinced that animals are a bridge which helps children autists to find communication with the outer world.
“Drug treatment brings comfort not to the child autist, but to people surrounding him. The child became convenient for others, but actually his state remains the same. And the animals really help” — Nikita’s mother emphasized.
It should be reminded that the Centre of Psychosocial Rehabilitation started its work in 2013. The professional psychologists and psychotherapists provide complex psychological and social assistance to children and teenagers with mental disorders, deviant bahaviour, and to the families, who encountered difficult circumstances. It also works with the IDPs from the ATO zone, the defenders of Ukraine and their relatives. The projects, which are the priority of the Centre’s activity include “Equine-Assisted Therapy for Everyone” , “Let’s Take Children Away from Streets”, “War Through the Eyes of Children” , “Happy Child”, “Learn to Speak in Ecopark”, “Bibliotherapy” and others.
