Michael Castillo sometimes struggles with his emotions. But the seventh-grader at Morrison Elementary in Olney learned a lot — from donkeys and horses.

When Michael first came to Fox Chase Farm for a pilot program that helps students learn social and emotional skills, he was scared, he said. He thought the animals might bite or kick him.

“But that’s only if you trigger their stuff, their moments,” Michael said. “You have to sit right next to them. When they run, they don’t want to be pets and they don’t want to be touched. It gives you patience; you have to let them come to you.”

Encouraged by the success of the pilot, the Philadelphia school district is expanding the program to 12 schools this academic year – Morrison, Harding Middle School in Frankford, Hancock Elementary in Northeast, Hunter in North Philadelphia, Sharswood in South Philadelphia and Roosevelt Elementary in Germantown this fall and six schools to be established in the spring. Each school sends eight to 10 children to sessions twice a week.

The Equine Assisted Social-Emotional Learning Support Program gives students with disabilities – and some of their non-disabled peers – the ability to help “manage their emotions, build resilience and develop critical thinking skills,” a said Mandy Manna, who runs Fox Chase Farm. a district property that works with students from schools around the city.

“I wish we had animals”

It will cost about $108,000 to run this school year; foundations foot the bill.

The program came from an idea that Meredith Lowe, Morrison’s principal, had in 2019. Lowe, who is a member of the Neubauer Family Foundation Academy of Schools, was in a Neubauer small group speaking about the student experience with trauma and mental health.

Lowe described running down the street after an eighth-grader in a Morrison emotional support class who was overwhelmed and ran out of the building.

“She said, ‘I wish we had animals like goats in the school to help the kids,'” said Melissa Anderson, a clinical psychologist and trustee of the Neubauer Family Foundation.

The classroom goats weren’t practical, but Lowe and Kristen DeMarco, executive director of Gateway HorseWorks, a Malvern nonprofit that incorporates horses into mental health treatment, worked together to develop the program that was celebrated at Fox Chase Farm Wednesday.

The results were impressive: 100% of students who participated had improved attendance; 90% continued to increase attendance after the program. Participating students had fewer mental health referrals, received fewer suspensions, and were able to spend more time in general education classes.

“As a school leader, the impact this actually has on the building is tremendous,” Lowe said. “We have kids talking about physical safety and emotional safety and boundaries and respect.”

The mental health needs of students have increased dramatically since the pandemic; 1 in 6 young people in the U.S. is affected by mental health conditions, said Meghan Smith, the district’s acting deputy chief of prevention and intervention.

“We are very excited about this initiative as we are always looking for innovative ways to meet the social-emotional and behavioral health needs of our students,” Smith said; programs like this give a vulnerable student population the ability to learn and practice skills that serve them in the classroom and beyond.

“We are very excited about this partnership,” said Smith. “We look forward to continued growth.”

“This one is much stronger”

After the adults spoke, Michael and his classmate, Jake Em Christian, demonstrated how the program works by walking with Philadelphia Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. into a donkey pen.

Ellen and Naomi, two soft brown donkeys, eyed the trio warily. DeMarco reminded Jake and Michael to check in with the donkeys.

“Physical safety and emotional safety have to exist before we have trust,” DeMarco said.

But Jake and Michael were professionals; they were quiet and gentle. No one taught them how to handle horses or donkeys, DeMarco said.

“This model believes that our customers have solutions if we give them space to develop them,” she said.

One of the donkeys retreated to a corner of her pen and took a brush used to comb her fur and held it in his mouth.

“They’re kind of scared,” Jake said.

“Too many people,” Michael said. “When you feel angry or sad, you just walk away.”

Watlington nodded.

“It’s not that they don’t like me; they’re just not ready yet,” Watlington said. As a former teacher, he imagined that Ellen and Naomi’s behavior might mimic a student who lashed out when it was time to have a tough conversation. “It may very well not be defiance, just that the student is not ready to talk.”

Eventually, the donkey whisperers, including the superintendent, won over Ellen and Naomi, who enjoyed ear and flank scratches and tolerated being close to the trio.

“That’s a lot more powerful than anything I could say to them,” DeMarco said. “They knew what they had to do.”