KATIE VANBRACKLE
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Shelley Margow, left, and Emily Dettman run the Healing Hoof Prints program at Shelland Place Farm in Milton.
Healing Hoof Prints
Local women offer equine therapy for troubled children By CAITLIN WAGENSEIL
caitlin@northsidewoman.com
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ometimes a wrong turn can lead you in the right direction. Soon after moving to the North Fulton area, Emily Dettman was driving through Milton’s suburban countryside when a wrong turn took her down Hopewell Road and past the entrance of Shelland Place Farm, where she noticed a small sign advertising therapy on horseback. She thought to herself, “that’s what I do,” and picked up her phone to call Shelley Margow, the farm’s owner. The two women hit it off immediately and soon discovered a common passion for helping children with behavioral disabilities. Dettman’s wrong turn resulted in a friendship and partnership that would last for years to come. One could say, it was meant to happen. Dettman is a certified equine specialist with a master’s degree in professional counseling. Margow is an occupational therapist and founder of Children’s Therapy Works, a pediatric private therapy practice, as well as the nonprofit Academy at North Fulton, a school for children with behavioral disorders and disabilities. Margow had previously used the horses on her farm for hippotherapy, which uses the movement of the horse as a physical therapy tool. Dettman offered something new – a specialty in equine assisted psychotherapy (EAP), which uses horses as a therapeutic tool to address the child’s self-esteem, confidence, communication skills, trust and boundaries. Margow happily agreed to donate the use of her farm for Emily’s Healing Hoof Prints service, which brings troubled children and their families together with counselors and horses. While the program primarily benefits students of the academy, the service is available to any child in the community who is struggling – perhaps with depression, an eating disorder, attention problems or other behavioral disabilities. Margow says working with horses can have amazing benefits, and in light of several recent suicides 8 | northsidewoman.com | december2013
When a child feels like the whole world is against them, and then this huge animal comes up to them and just accepts them and wants their interactions without any judgment— it’s so powerful.” Emily Dettman Healing Hoof Prints
in the local community, Margow hopes families with troubled children will seek their help. “We work with all sorts of kids, even severely troubled children who often have nowhere else to go,” said Margow. “These are kids who hide under tables and won’t come out, who throw chairs at teachers and bite and spit. They have been labeled as ‘unable to socialize,’” she said. One child in particular, Victor, came to them when he was 3. He wouldn’t speak or ask for anything, and would constantly kick and scream. Victor participated in intense therapy sessions at the academy, but it was at the farm where he made the
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