WADSWORTH, Ohio — At a barn in Wadsworth, horses and humans are working together to promote healing. Hope Meadows, a non-profit, uses the power of equine therapy to help those they serve work through trauma, focus on communication and create a space to reflect and grow.
Co-founders of Hope Meadows Michelle Togliatti and Anne Kichurchak both have a love of horses, and understand personally the impact being around horses, and out in nature, can have on mental health.
The duo, who grew up in Ohio, have been friends since high school. However, as they grew up, both grappled with their own battles with mental health.
“Her and I had some personal trials and tribulations we had gone through and kind of went off on our own paths,” Kichurchak said.
Kichurchak was able to seek treatment out west, at a program where she came to fully understand the impact horses can have in healing.
“When I just was struggling with my health and mental health, I always relied on nature and again, just always loved horses, they always brought me peace,” she said. “And when I was looking into programs, there really wasn't anything around here to help me with that.”
While Kichurchak was able to attend an organized treatment program, Togliatti did not have the same options.
“That was really part of my story was we couldn't afford therapy. We couldn't afford to go send me to an inpatient program,” Togliatti said. “This is my passion - is being able to give this treatment to those who can't afford it or who need it.”
When the women reconnected years later, they realized they both turned to nature for hope and healing. Walking around the Cleveland MetroParks one day, they began thinking about horses and their connection to mental health, and came up with the idea for Hope Meadows.
“We really felt like bringing people out in nature, connecting them with the horses and providing this type of mental health therapy was really going to be the catalyst for healing and change,” Togliatti said.
About three and a half years ago, Hope Meadows was born, with the goal of providing equine therapy at little to no cost to those who need it. While both recognize the impact horse related therapy can have, they view it as an adjunct to traditional therapy, and said they see the ways it can help “accelerate the healing process.”
Both described horses’ ability to sense the feelings and mood of those they’re with, detecting emotions and energy like stress or fear.
“If a client is not able to vocalize what's happening with them, or vocalize their trauma, or [if] a child is not able to express what they're going through at school or at home, we can watch the behavior of the horses and they give us this insight into what's going on with the client,” Togliatti said. “Clients are able to project on the horses and we get their story a little bit faster.”
“Anything that we can teach here with the horses can be transferred over to human relationships,” said Kichurchak.
Lisa Marie Borchert is the clinical director at Hope Meadows, and oversees programming for clients, as well as runs groups and facilitates clinical education programs. Hope Meadows allows her to combine her love of horses with 25 years of experience in private practice.
“I do have horses, I grew up with horses and I went to education out in Arizona and found that the horses allow us to express ourselves so much quicker even than a traditional setting,” she said. “And I felt that [we] really needed to offer this to people so that they could have an opportunity to dig deeper quicker than just in a traditional setting.”
Especially since the pandemic, Borchert said many of their clients are still grappling with the different stressors. Hope Meadows works with an array of clients, from school children to first responders like medical professionals and police officers.
Borchert said group work will often start with mindfulness skills like deep breathing and grounding mechanisms. From there, clients will observe the horses, and begin to approach them, interacting with the horses through props like brushes.
They will also interact with the horses through activities, such as guiding the horses through obstacles without touch. These kinds of exercises can promote work in communication, boundary setting, and confidence.
“It also tells you as a therapist, what might be going [on] outside of the arena? You know, how are clients' boundaries? How well do they assert themselves? Are they shy? Are they forthcoming?” Borchert said.
For the groups that come to Hope Meadows, the impact of the work is clear. Laura Robinson is a mental health and substance abuse counselor at Moore Counseling & Mediation Services, Inc., which offers outpatient services and treatment for substance use disorders and mental health disorders.
There, Robinson works with survivors of human trafficking through the agency’s work with Judge Marilyn Cassidy and the Cleveland Municipal Court’s Human Trafficking special docket.
“Some of the more complicated trauma cases that stem from things like human trafficking and repeated experiences of adversity just don't always respond to traditional therapy alone,” Robinson said.
Robinson said that in working with horses, the women she works with, who may come in with doubts, prove themselves wrong.
“The power of a horse, it's so much larger than you, it can be so intimidating,” she said. “That's something that they're used to - being intimidated, feeling powerless. So when you learn to manage yourself and assert yourself around such a powerful creature, it's really rewarding.”
Bonnie Simonelli is the at-risk student coordinator for the Revere Local School District. She said she noticed that in 2021, some students were dealing with anxiety or mental health issues having navigated so many changes during the pandemic. Through a grant for social emotional learning and mental health supports, the district started bringing students to Hope Meadows.
“Just feeling supported, feeling cared about knowing a different avenue,” Simonelli said of the outcomes she’s seen in students who have attended programming at Hope Meadows. “We see their attendance picking up and they feel like the school is paying attention to them.”
Chris Gibbons, a detective with the Cleveland Police Department, has seen the way having a new environment and time out in nature can relax officers. He said they started reaching out to different resources to help officers navigate stress, and came across Hope Meadows.
“As a police officer, you know, obviously the job's stressful, right,” he said. “And you know, being around horses, the horses actually help reduce stress.”
Gibbons said the horses serve as a mirror for where officers are emotionally, and provide instant feedback. He added that the option to go to Hope Meadows exists for all officers, but they especially try to reach out to particularly high stress units, such as homicide or sex crime units.
“It gives them an opportunity to decompress,” he said. “So stepping away from the hectic nature of the city and the job and coming out here to this really pastoral setting, just people just instantly calm down, you can just see the look on their face when they come.”
For Togliatti and Kichurchak, the focus is allowing people and horses to connect in order to help with healing and foster a safe and empowering environment.
“This is what I feel I was put on this earth to do,” Kichurchak said. “We just want to help people.”
On Friday, November 4, Hope Meadows will be hosting their Autumn Auction Fundraiser at Lake Forest Country Club in Hudson. For more information on the fundraiser and supporting Hope Meadows, click here.
Hope Meadows recently moved into a new barn facility in Wadsworth. Hope Meadows has locations in Wadsworth and Richfield.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above previously aired on 3News on Oct. 9, 2022.