About Saddle Up: A powerful journey of learning with horses.
Youth Life Skills & Leadership Program
Empowering Today's Teens
We have been trained by the world-renowned Equine Connection - The Academy of Equine Assisted Learning Inc, who certifies all over the world through the Academy of Equine Assisted Learning BuildingBlock™ course. You will see Equine Connection instructors in the videos provided, these will give a better understanding of the value of our programs and workshops.
Let's make a difference.
Saddle Up Life Skills has a unique, researched approach to helping teach valuable life skills to our young people! Here, the horses are the teachers. These experiential programs for teenagers are not only educational but have been designed for students to acquire strength-based life skills (i.e., developmental assets) such as effective communication, enhanced problem-solving, a better understanding of body language, and respecting personal boundaries, among others.
LET'S SET THE STAGE FOR SUCCESS AND WATCH OUR YOUTH SOAR!
What if every youth was empowered to rise above their “story” and life situation to develop real, unshakeable confidence?
Why Empowerment Programs are Important
for Today’s Youth
Today’s youth don’t have it easy and face complex issues like increasing pressures from peers, family members, and even mentors. Achievement pressures, confusion, abuse & sexual exploitation, bullying, isolation, depression, social media exposure and at-risk behaviors are just some of the challenges our young people face daily. We should be equipping them with the life skills and confidence required to not just get through life, but to soar!
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Teaching Youth the BuildingBlock™'s of Life One Skill at a Time
By utilizing an interactive, hands-on approach through the educational BuildingBlock™ Curriculum, we facilitate teachable moments with a lasting impact. This allows our facilitators to keep the learning process growing, by building upon different skills and objectives each week. This ensures the effectiveness of our program and allows us to track individual advancements in each of our youth.
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In our Rising Stars Development Programs, we partner with horses to deliver powerful, interactive, and experiential non-riding activities to help teens and young adults. By including horses in these specially designed educational experiences, we can significantly multiply the participant’s rate of success in facilitating life-altering change, as well as in enhancing emotional growth and developing psychological wellbeing.
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OUR HORSES GUARANTEEWhen I teach you, I will never judge you! I will never lie to you! I am a teller of truth as that is ONLY what I can do because of my brain! I will bring love and healing to your heart! I will offer you a way to smile, giggle, and have FUN!! This learning I promise to you doesn’t just stay in the arena, this learning you will transfer into your own life!
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WHY HORSES?To be prey is to be vulnerable. Their job is to not be killed. The number #1 thing a prey animal needs to feel is SAFE! A horse's senses are highly astute and can tell in a moment when thoughts from the mind and feelings from your gut are off. They can hear our heartbeat, and they will react to the slightest changes within a team; allowing facilitators to find those “teachable moments” for your organization. Horse movements are linked to emotion. Horses are the most feeling of beings so use their intuitive vs thinking, as humans do. They are just like us - sort of. Movement is the key to a horse, primarily forward movement. Everything about staying alive involves forward movement, which parallels us, humans. Herds to horses are just like teams to people. Horses require a leader to trust, respect and keep them safe, just like we appreciate having in the workplace. This gives us the ability to parallel everything that happens to real-life situations so that what you learn really sticks within each human! Quite simply, the horse does the teaching; facilitators are only there to offer an explanation and provide guidance as you work through the solution. Working with horses creates memories that can be applied to our lives and retained far longer than sitting in ‘just another classroom.’ This program offers lasting change because you can't fool the teacher!
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WHAT IS EQUINE ASSISTED LEARNING?Equine Assisted Learning is a learner-based educational, experiential experience with horses. More specifically, it is an effective approach to human development that encourages individual and team growth. Participants engage in objectively driven exercises. They find themselves learning valuable life skills in a fun and exciting atmosphere while working with horses. Exercises are developed to encourage self-confidence through validated, hands-on experiences. Equine Assisted Learning has proven to be useful, powerful, positive, educational, and creative.
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IS THIS EQUINE THERAPY?We focus on skills that help participants move forward in life, such as how to communicate feelings more effectively by using verbal and nonverbal communication tools. While our horse-assisted learning programs help participants learn how to interact effectively with others, improve self-confidence, and build problem-solving and decision-making skills, it is NOT equine therapy. Equine Assisted Learning works because the teachers are the horses!
LEARNING GUIDED BY A HORSE
This is why our youth programs are unique & innovative:
OUR RESEARCHED & PROVEN PROGRAMS WITH A GUARANTEED OUTCOME!
Our programs focus on empowering youth and helping them to make healthy, informed choices so that they can respond to life’s difficulties with courage, self-awareness, and confidence.
The Briefing
Once our participants arrive, we welcome them to our facility, go over safety & housekeeping, and explain how these programs work and the program they'll be doing and the objective they'll be learning.
Arena Time
This is where the magic happens. Our participants will partner with their teams and horses and go through the program. Each program has an objective and guaranteed outcome. Everything learned will be paralleled back to real life! These skills will then be transferrable to their own lives.
The Debrief
Once the arena time is over, we'll come back into the classroom where we'll debrief the program, bring everything back to the objective one more time and ensure the learning really transfers back to life.
Words & Journalling
We then end the session with achievement words, and the participants journal their "a-ha's" and progress to be able to reflect back on them. All journalling will be sent to the organization or given to the parents at the end of our time together.
Teachers that deliver results.
Unlike a traditional classroom setting, here at Saddle Up Life Skills, the horses are the teachers. What better partner in the experiential learning experience than the horse. Horses live in the moment; they don’t judge, and they are great listeners that require strong leaders. We focus on safety first and foremost with our youth and our horses and begin our curriculum ensuring that the student is taught the basics of working with the horses properly. Once the horse feels safe and comfortable with the student, they will form a partnership that will allow them both to work together. The facilitators at Saddle Up Life Skills will use these moments to parallel the experience back to real-life situations at school, at home and in their individual lives.
Our Rising Stars program is not a bandage effect for humans; it's life-changing with proven results from a 5-year research study with the University of Calgary, Saskatoon, and Regina.
Equine Assisted Learning acts as an important educational tool to help to develop empathy and kindness as well as combat:
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Behavioral disorders
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Low self-esteem
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Bullying
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Emotional issues
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Poor communication skills
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Inability to work with others
Equine assisted learning is being increasingly used as an approach to enhance emotional growth as well as develop psychological wellbeing.
Our experiential youth programs are designed to teach youth to face the everyday challenges of growing up with confidence and a strong sense of empowerment.
IN-PERSON PROGRAMS
The benefits are endless when participating in our experiential skills development programs.
We offer a range of programs for Schools and Youth Organizations from our beautiful outdoor classroom setting in Aubrey, located 35 minutes north of the Plano/Frisco area and 20 minutes west of the Celina/Prosper area. Students work in small teams alongside our magnificent horse ‘teachers’ and experienced coaches help participants take the lessons they have learned with the horses and parallel these back to everyday life. The parallels drawn to everyday situations have profound and lasting benefits for positive change. No prior experience is necessary and there is no riding as participants partner with their horse from the ground. We look forward to partnering with you for success in building life skills for your youth!
For Ages:
12-17
Length Of Program:
6 or 12 weeks
Pricing:
Option 1: 6 weeks $528
Option 2: 12 weeks $1,056
Option 3: Contact us for a customized program
Location:
Aubrey, TX
Rising Stars:
Life Skills Programs
Our ‘Rising Stars’ program supports young people in developing the skills needed to confidently navigate change and transitions. This specific Life Skills BuildingBlock™ program is a great alternative or addition to traditional classroom education. Each of our objectively driven exercises is custom designed to maximize learning potential and focus on developing individual skills as youth work through fun, interactive group challenges, in an experiential environment.
Our programs are specifically designed to support young people through challenging periods of time and transition, building resilience, self-confidence, and self-esteem.
Schools | Homeschool Groups | Individual Groups
Care and Compassion: Anti-Bullying Programs
Our ‘Care and Compassion’ program has been specifically structured to develop self-esteem, assertiveness, and communication skills in an inclusive, neutral environment. The program helps address issues of bullying in schools and youth organizations, developing positive social skills in a non-threatening and relaxed environment.
Our programs are ideal for both the victims and perpetrators of bullying as young people demonstrating bullying behaviors may be just as much a victim in their own lives as those they direct aggression towards.
Anti-Bullying Program
Engage & Empower:
Youth At-Risk Programs
By emphasizing self-responsibility and accountability, our interactive Engage & Empower programs provide young people at risk of disengagement with the opportunity to develop self-reliance, self-confidence, and self-esteem. Early intervention provides the best opportunity for young people to be well prepared for lifelong, continued learning.
Horses understand how to differentiate between potentially threatening behavior and a calm and assertive nature. They role model the positive impact of clear and effective leadership, acceptance, kindness, and compassion.
Youth At-Risk