WATCH: Cork pupils take part in 'transformational' equine therapy classes 

The principal of a Cork city secondary school has described their new equine therapy programme for autistic students as “transformational.” 

The students in St Patrick’s College’s ASD hub 'An Cuan' have been attending classes at Equine Therapy Cork in Whitechurch, with the Montenotte school the first in Cork to provide this therapy as part of their wellbeing curriculum.

Throughout the six-week programme, students have been learning about the basic care of a horse, how to groom a horse and have progressed from being led to being able to ride independently.

School principal Brian Cronin told The Echo“our ASD coordinator Catherine Hennessy came to me with another teacher with a proposal for equine therapy, they had come across it in their own research.

“There was a place not far from our school, and there is evidence that animals, especially domestic animals like dogs and horses, can have really strong therapeutic interventions for adults and kids with autism.

“Like all these things, it’s expensive, but the person doing the therapy, Julia Buckley, came in and met me and she was very impressive, a lot of qualifications and evidence that it can help these students, so I said lets go with it.” 

Ms Buckley charged them a discounted rate, and the school received some money from the Board of Management for the programme, fundraising and making the rest up from parent’s contributions.

“It is expensive, anything to do with horses is,” Mr Cronin said, “but we were able to make a go of it once we had the money for the bus there and the therapy itself once a week for six weeks.” 

He visited the equestrian centre for the first time this week when a student and parent celebration was held there on Friday and said, “it was amazing to see it – seeing is believing.

“There were kids that you’d rarely see smiling or who would usually have very little to say, they were looking you in the eye, smiling and talking, it was transformational.

“A few schools would have therapy dogs in the last number of years, but horses have a certain effect,” he said, even learning how to manage an animal, to lead it, tack it up, groom it, what to feed it...to have that sense of achievement with an animal is fantastic.” 

Mr Cronin said he believes there will be more therapeutic interventions based on connections with animals in the future.

“It was great to see it in action yesterday. As a principal you can’t get away that often but it was just mind blowing to see, it’s something really special - I think there’s going to be more and more therapeutic interventions based on connection with animals going forward.”

An Cuan co-ordinator Catherine Hennessy said “there was a marked improvement in the students' confidence in their social skills and educational engagement" as a result of the programme. 

"Along with increased attendance and physical and emotional wellbeing. This couldn’t have happened without two of our teacher’s Eleanor Troy and June McCarthy who are no strangers to horse riding themselves. This is something I hope we can continue to roll out in the future," she said.