Holbrook Indian School
A Seventh-day Adventist Boarding Academy Serving Native American Youth Since 1946
Healing with Horses By Alyssa Williams
D
akota is one of the 13 horses at Holbrook Indian School (HIS). Like many of our students, Dakota has a backstory that led her to distrust humans and live out of a place of fear. Fred Bruce, the founder and teacher of our horsemanship program, acquired the Paint horse from a previous owner. It appears that Dakota had been mistreated; however, with time, patience, and hard work, Dakota has made progress. She is beginning to trust those who work with her, and she is helping students do the same. Our students come to HIS with an array of challenges. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, and trust and abandonment issues seem to be the norm. Learning and functioning in an academic setting can be difficult for students who have been through so much in their short
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lives. HIS uses a multidisciplinary approach to give students the tools and skills they need to face the challenges that confront them. Working with horses is one of the ways students can heal, learn, and grow. For the past eight and a half years, students have had the
opportunity to take horsemanship classes. If you were to come on campus in the afternoon, you would see students riding in the ring or grooming the horses in the barn. Some students love working with the horses, while others are timid. Yet all seem to benefit from their