Horses "can feel your heartbeat from eight feet away," says social worker Chessalynn "Chessy" Jones. Since a horse can weigh over 1,000 lbs, they demand honesty and respect - especially among the kids at Wild Souls Ranch, a nonprofit serving Humboldt County's at-risk youth.
"Essentially, you can't fool a horse. So if you're calm, the horse will reflect being calm back to you." Equine-assisted learning approaches personal growth through the lens of ranchhand responsibilities: riding, caring for, and cleaning up after a horse.
In this episode, Chessy Jones walks Keith and Tom through the ranch to meet the herd and shines a light on how they use horses as healers.
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Transcript:
Chessy Jones:
Hi, I'm Chessy Jones. I'm a social worker at Wild Souls Ranch. Let me show you around the ranch… We'll start here. This is the round pen. And this is where we do a lot of our sessions.
Tom Jackson:
You didn't know this, but see, we both have horses.
Chessy Jones:
Oh, you do?
Keith Flamer:
We both do.
Chessy Jones:
Oh, that's so cool! They're really good at showing us our stories. This is our wall of boots. A lot of our youth show up in whatever they wear to school. So when we're asking them to ride, we often are offering them a loaner pair of boots, and it gets very dusty. So, this is one of the chores that our kids have, and it promotes responsibility.
Chessy Jones:
And then this is the manager out here. And if you guys like, I could introduce you to the horses.
Keith Flamer:
We’d love to!
Chessy Jones:
All of the horses here have their own stories, and some of them have, you know, trauma stories themselves. So this is Juniper. Juniper is experienced with therapeutic learning. She really meets kids where they're at and she needs clear communication.
And she's also one of our silliest horses. She gets real prancy at times when she’s feeling silly.
This is Goose right here with the pinned ears. Goose also does amazing tricks; when the kids learn how to do the tricks with Goose it can be really awesome for building confidence because they're easy cues to learn and in you get a big show out of it so it can be a great activity for building self-worth.
Keith Flamer:
This is so wonderful.
Chessy Jones:
This is tough. He is the horse that we usually start all the kids on. He is bombproof. Nothing fazes him. Speaking of serene, this is JD. JD, His gorgeous hair that you can see blowin’ in the wind.
[Music interlude]
Tom Jackson:
Chessy, thank you very much for the walk around the place. It's just amazing. Amazing. You’re a social worker here.
Chessy Jones:
I am, yeah.
Tom Jackson:
Can you say a little bit about what that means and who you work with?
Chessy Jones:
We facilitate equine-assisted learning. Equine-assisted learning is a therapeutic way of learning about yourself through horses. The horses create this beautiful space for people to explore their own stories. Horses will reflect your emotions back to you. Essentially, you can't fool a horse. So if you're calm, the horse will reflect being calm back to you. If you're dysregulated, even if you're hiding it really well, you can't hide it from a horse.
Chessy Jones:
So the horse just demands transparency. People are always putting our human emotions and our stories onto the horses. It's just like something that people naturally do. You don't really have to teach it. So, in that way, we can explore people's stories and learn ways to heal through that.
Keith Flamer:
You just answered my question, okay? Because I was going to ask - why horses? Yeah, I figure you know the answer, but….
Chessy Jones:
Horses, they're big, so that can be intimidating to some people, but they're a prey animal. So horses speak fluently in energy. They can feel your energy. They can actually feel your heartbeat from like eight feet away. They will read energy and heartbeats to kind of know if, like, are you going to attack me or are you safe?
Tom Jackson:
How did you learn that?
Chessy Jones:
I grew up riding horses. As an adult, I came back to riding horses and I was actually really scared. I just remember, ‘Oh, this is one thing I can't fake my way through’. And so I kept riding, but I was really nervous. And then I was working in different mental health backgrounds and I've learned a lot more about horses since working here.
Keith Flamer:
How many kids do you think come in annually?
Chessy Jones:
I think currently we see about 50 kids a month right now.
Tom Jackson:
Talking about your clients... share a little bit more about what a typical client might look like.
Chessy Jones:
Yeah. So we serve at-risk youth. We serve children in the foster system and we serve adoptive youth. Really, the only criteria to our clients is that your youth has experienced trauma. We offer wraparound services which serves adopted youth who are potentially at risk of losing placement. And then we have contracts with different entities in the county as well.
Tom Jackson:
How do you know you've made a difference?
Chessy Jones:
Watching a kid find their voice after being quiet for a long time, or maybe a kid who's able to advocate for themselves for the first time. Like, even if it's like, ‘No, I don't want to ride that horse’. Or like, ‘No, I don't want the orange crayon.’ It can be really little, but this is a safe space to explore that.
The one kid that stands out, she's been coming to the ranch for over a year. She was working a lot on finding her voice and her confidence and self-worth. When she first started coming here, she was really quiet. She can really respond to questions. She was really shut down, just really spaced out. You'd wave your hand in front of her face, like, ‘Hey, you know, you there?’, you know?
And then fast forward six months later and you're asking them to wait their talking turn, you know, when with peers. So it's just really cool to see her find her voice.
Tom Jackson:
I forgot to ask, How many horses do you have?
Chessy Jones:
I believe we have 17 horses or 17 equine.
Tom Jackson:
We probably shouldn’t use up all the radio time naming them all.
Chessy Jones:
Yeah. We didn’t even get to half of them too. [laughter]
Tom Jackson:
Name one or two with the most personality.
Chessy Jones:
Canté is my heart horse. He works really well with kids that are on the spectrum. He is just like absolutely amazing at meeting them where they're at. Another horse with a big personality would be Tinder. He's one of our younger horses, very curious, and I kind of describe him as like a lap dog. He is a horse that we will use and we're working on frustration tolerance.
If we want to get a kid good and mad, we'll put them in with Tinder because Tinder is not going to move anywhere unless you really mean it. So he has a really big personality and he's also a mouth scientist. So he's the one who will take your hat off of your head while you're walking by.
Keith Flamer:
How do parents find out about you and how do parents access what you give?
Chessy Jones:
If anybody has any questions about it, I would suggest going to either our Instagram, our Facebook or our website.
Tom Jackson:
Chessy, As I sit here and I look out the window, it is clear to me that this place not only has a spirituality to it, but a calmness, a gentleness. And I can see why Wild Souls Ranch is so important to the kids that you serve. Thank you. Chessy Jones, social worker at Wild Souls Ranch. Thank you very much for your time.
Keith Flamer:
I so enjoyed our conversation.
Chessy Jones:
Oh, it's really nice. Thank you.
Keith Flamer:
Thank you.
Chessy Jones:
Hi, I'm Chessy Jones. I'm a social worker at Wild Souls Ranch. Let me show you around the ranch… We'll start here. This is the round pen. And this is where we do a lot of our sessions.
Tom Jackson:
You didn't know this, but see, we both have horses.
Chessy Jones:
Oh, you do?
Keith Flamer:
We both do.
Chessy Jones:
Oh, that's so cool! They're really good at showing us our stories. This is our wall of boots. A lot of our youth show up in whatever they wore to school. So when we're asking them to ride, we often are offering them a loaner pair of boots, and it gets very dusty. So this is one of the chores that our kids have, and it promotes responsibility.
Chessy Jones:
And then this is the manger out here. And if you guys like, I could introduce you to the horses.
Keith Flamer:
We’d love to!
Chessy Jones:
All of the horses here have their own stories and some of them have, you know, trauma stories themselves. So this is Juniper. Juniper is experienced with therapeutic learning. She really meets kids where they're at and she needs clear communication.
And she's also one of our silliest horses. She gets real prancy at times when she’s feeling silly.
This is Goose right here with the pinned ears. Goose also does amazing tricks; when the kids learn how to do the tricks with Goose it can be really awesome for building confidence because they're easy cues to learn and in you get a big show out of it so it can be a great activity for building self-worth.
Keith Flamer:
This is so wonderful.
Chessy Jones:
This is tough. He is the horse that we usually start all the kids on. He is bombproof. Nothing fazes him. Speaking of serene, this is JD. JD, His gorgeous hair that you can see blowin’ in the wind.
[Music interlude]
Tom Jackson:
Chessy, thank you very much for the walk around the place. It's just amazing. Amazing. You’re a social worker here.
Chessy Jones:
I am, yeah.
Tom Jackson:
Can you say a little bit about what that means and who you work with?
Chessy Jones:
We facilitate equine-assisted learning. Equine-assisted learning is a therapeutic way of learning about yourself through horses. The horses create this beautiful space for people to explore their own stories. Horses will reflect your emotions back to you. Essentially, you can't fool a horse. So if you're calm, the horse will reflect being calm back to you. If you're dysregulated, even if you're hiding it really well, you can't hide it from a horse.
Chessy Jones:
So the horse just demands transparency. People are always putting our human emotions and our stories onto the horses. It's just like something that people just naturally do. You don't really have to teach it. So in that way, we can explore people's stories and learn ways to heal through that.
Keith Flamer:
You just answered my question, okay? Because I was going to ask - why horses? Yeah, I figure you know the answer, but….
Chessy Jones:
Horses, they're big, so that can be intimidating to some people, but they're a prey animal. So horses speak fluently in energy. They can feel your energy. They can actually feel your heartbeat from like eight feet away. They will read energy and heartbeats to kind of know if, like, are you going to attack me or are you safe?
Tom Jackson:
How did you learn that?
Chessy Jones:
I grew up riding horses. As an adult, I came back to riding horses and I was actually really scared. I just remember, ‘Oh, this is one thing I can't fake my way through’. And so I kept riding, but I was really nervous. And then I was working in different mental health backgrounds and I've learned a lot more about horses since working here.
Keith Flamer:
How many kids do you think come in annually?
Chessy Jones:
I think currently we see about 50 kids a month right now.
Tom Jackson:
Talking about your clients... share a little bit more about what a typical client might look like.
Chessy Jones:
Yeah. So we serve at-risk youth. We serve children in the foster system and we serve adoptive youth. Really, the only criteria to our clients is that your youth has experienced trauma. We offer wraparound services which serves adopted youth who are potentially at risk of losing placement. And then we have contracts with different entities in the county as well.
Tom Jackson:
How do you know you've made a difference?
Chessy Jones:
Watching a kid find their voice after being quiet for a long time, or maybe a kid who's able to advocate for themselves for the first time. Like, even if it's like, ‘No, I don't want to ride that horse’. Or like, ‘No, I don't want the orange crayon.’ It can be really little, but this is a safe space to explore that.
The one kid that stands out, she's been coming to the ranch for over a year. She was working a lot on finding her voice and her confidence and self-worth. When she first started coming here, she was really quiet. She can really respond to questions. She was really shut down, just really spaced out. You'd wave your hand in front of her face, like, ‘Hey, you know, you there?’, you know?
And then fast forward six months later and you're asking them to wait their talking turn, you know, when with peers. So it's just really cool to see her find her voice.
Tom Jackson:
I forgot to ask, How many horses do you have?
Chessy Jones:
I believe we have 17 horses or 17 equine.
Tom Jackson:
We probably shouldn’t use up all the radio time naming them all.
Chessy Jones:
Yeah. We didn’t even get to half of them too. [laughter]
Tom Jackson:
Name one or two with the most personality.
Chessy Jones:
Canté is my heart horse. He works really well with kids that are on the spectrum. He is just like absolutely amazing at meeting them where they're at. Another horse with a big personality would be Tinder. He's one of our younger horses, very curious, and I kind of describe him as like a lap dog. He is a horse that we will use and we're working on frustration tolerance.
If we want to get a kid good and mad, we'll put them in with Tinder because Tinder is not going to move anywhere unless you really mean it. So he has a really big personality and he's also a mouth scientist. So he's the one who will take your hat off of your head while you're walking by.
Keith Flamer:
How do parents find out about you and how do parents access what you give?
Chessy Jones:
If anybody has any questions about it, I would suggest going to either our Instagram, our Facebook or our website.
Tom Jackson:
Chessy, As I sit here and I look out the window, it is clear to me that this place not only has a spirituality to it, but a calmness, a gentleness. And I can see why Wild Souls Ranch is so important to the kids that you serve. Thank you. Chessy Jones, social worker at Wild Souls Ranch. Thank you very much for your time.
Keith Flamer:
I so enjoyed our conversation.
Chessy Jones:
Oh, it's really nice. Thank you.
Keith Flamer:
Thank you.
