August 31, 2024

Thanks to an award from the Children’s Services Fund of Jackson County, HorsePower Experiential Learning Program (HELP) will be able to expand and serve more clients through this unique equine program designed to help young people struggling with mental-health issues.

Children’s Services Fund (CSF) is providing a one-year capacity building contract award totaling $32,000 starting July 1, 2024. This amount will be earmarked for a customer relationship management system, strategic planning consulting, contracted bookkeeping services and an online volunteer management system.

“The purpose of this capacity building project is to strengthen our infrastructure to increase the number of students we serve in our community who struggle with mental-health issues,” said Julie Jensen, HorsePower executive director.

A 501c3 nonprofit organization, HorsePower serves around 65 students each year with the support of close to 160 volunteers and one paid employee. With the CSF funding, HorsePower will have the ability to increase organizational efficiency and be able to better analyze data, allowing the nonprofit to increase the number of clients served annually to approximately 100 students by the end of 2027.

Through HorsePower, students from age 6 to 18 participate in weekly 90-minute sessions for seven weeks as they learn and practice basic life-coping skills through hands-on horsemanship. Each student is paired with a mentor who works with the young person to encourage and support their efforts as they connect with the horse. An additional volunteer horse handler is also assigned to each horse and student, creating a 10-legged team.

HorsePower is the longest running mental-health equine program in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Founded in 2001, the charitable organization has grown over the years and currently does not have the capacity to meet the increasing requests for this therapeutic, equine-assisted, hands-on learning program. To learn more about HorsePower including how to contribute financially or as a volunteer, visit this webpage.

The overlying goal of HorsePower is to enable the students to experience, practice, and re-learn various life-coping skills through equine facilitated experiential learning, Jensen added.

“Our students complete a pre- and post-survey at weeks 1 and 7 of the program,” she said. “Students rank confidence in sharing my feelings, enjoy working with others, complete tasks asked of me, set goals, respect others, manage conflict without getting mad as well as can do what I set my mind to. Feedback from these surveys shows that our students experience the most growth in managing conflict without getting mad.”

The Children’s Services Fund provides financial support to organizations promoting kids’ mental health and emotional well-being.