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The title of the project is “Exploring family functioning in an at risk community (Diepsloot, Johannesburg) by means of equine assisted parent support”. The Diepsloot community is home to a population of 138 329 living on about 12 square kilometres. As elsewhere in South Africa, the poverty, crime and other social problems provide significant challenges for parents and their children living in the Diepsloot community, because it often aggravates family dysfunction and frustrate parents' efforts to provide a safe, secure, loving and stable family environment for their children. In these settings, how families communicate, solve problems, manage conflict and support one another is likely to be strongly influenced by the context in which children are brought up. This has a significant impact on the family's role to assist youth in developing life skills that will support their future aspirations. The focus of this research project is to understand family wellbeing, and how families in Diepsloot manage risk and access support in their community.
The research questions are as follows: What does risk and adversity mean to families living in Diepsloot? How do families support each other in managing risk and adversity? What knowledge, skill and experience do families rely on to access support in the community? What role does family context play in developing resilience in an at-risk community such as Diepsloot? It is widely acknowledged that South African family life in general suffers from breakdown as a result of problems such as poverty, crime and violence, absence of fathers, rising orphan hood and single parent families. In the Diepsloot community in particular, there are frequent occurrences of crime, violence, abuse, family conflict, divorce, parental substance abuse, absence of fathers and child headed households (Cornelius, 2008; Carruthers, 2008). The proposed project aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on family resilience in contexts of high risk, as well as the modality of equine assisted programmes to assist youth and families living in high risk contexts.
The project is a community based family orientated intervention exploring family resilience and how family respond to high adversity context. The Shumbashaba Community Trust has been offering equine assisted support programmes which are internationally recognised to the Diepsloot community for more than 20 years. These programmes include a therapeutic riding programme for children with disabilities, life skills programmes that are offered on a quarterly basis, leadership programmes, and most recently, a programme focusing particularly on the girl population of Diepsloot. The Department of Educational Psychology partnered with Shumbashaba in 2013 to provide practical training opportunities in family-oriented intervention for Masters students in Educational Psychology. A focus group conducted in the Diepsloot community in July 2014 indicated a need for parents to learn how to support their children in terms of the skills they have learned in the equine assisted life skills programme at Shumbashaba. Consequently, in August 2014, a group of 20 parents (mothers and fathers) participated in the first positive parenting workshop hosted by Shumbashaba in partnership with the MEd students of the University of Pretoria as part of their practical training. During this workshop, it became evident that parents felt they would also benefit from reflecting on how they can use their knowledge and skills to support their children. As a result of the positive feedback from parents who attended the positive parent workshop in 2014, Shumbashaba and the Department of Educational Psychology agreed to present four positive parent workshops in 2015. The first and last workshop would be presented in collaboration with Prof Salome´ Human-Vogel in her private capacity as volunteer for Shumbashaba, while the second and third workshops form part of the MEd students' practical training experience for 2015, which is attached to the OUB 804 Family Oriented Intervention module. The module addresses the theory of family-oriented intervention, conceptualising family wellbeing and resilience, as well as assessing and intervening with children in the context of family and community.
Part of their learning, and to prepare them for their practical work, is to attend an equine-assisted workshop where they learn how to be part of a system and build a therapeutic alliance with multiple clients in a system. As a second step, they receive a family (who attends the workshop) that they must interview, assess and intervene in a helpful and supportive way. They do this by applying theory on family assessment - in particular the McMaster model of family functioning, as well as the family resilience framework. Working with the parents therefore assist the students in gaining practical knowledge of family oriented intervention in the context of communities, and also provides them with the opportunity to develop skills in programme development.
The Positive Parent Workshops are hosted by the Shumbashaba Community Trust, and offered in collaboration with the Department of Educational Psychology MEd (Educational Psychology) students. In the course of the workshop, parents participate in focus group, discussion and arena activities with horses to explore their experiences. The interactions that participants have with humans and horses on the day are meticulously recorded, with the workshop participants' informed consent and permission. As a result, students are involved in participatory and non-participatory observation of activities, as well as structured and semi structured discussions with parents. The information that students gather in their practical work therefore consists of observations in the form of photos, video's, notes, and documents created from focus groups with the parents. At times, parents also create documents such as collages, letters, drawings and other creative expressive materials that allow them to capture their experiences.
The Positive Parent Workshop is an equine assisted growth and learning experience offered to parents under the auspices of an international body called EAGALA (Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association), which is distinct from other types of horse assisted psychotherapy activities (such as therapeutic riding or hypnotherapy) because it is exclusively based on interactions with a herd of free roaming horses in an enclosed area (such as a specially prepared paddock or arena). The EAGALA method follows a team approach, which consists of a mental health professional (psychologist, counsellor, or social worker) who must also be certified by EAGALA to practice; a horse specialist (typically someone with extensive knowledge of horse behaviour and animal psychology), and the horse, who is well prepared for its interactions with humans on the ground through systematic desensitisation and repeated exposure. The Shumbashaba horses who form part of the treatment team in the present community project have been involved over many years in the programmes and are used to, and can tolerate, a great deal of noise, unpredictable movement and activities from humans. Nevertheless, the area in which the horses roam freely during interactions in an equine assisted programme is big enough to permit a horse to move away should it prefer not to interact with participants. Generally, the horse specialist is responsible for selecting appropriate horses for a session, and observing horses' behaviour during a session to maximise safety and to ensure that all participants (human and equine) are not harmed as a result of their interactions with one another. Arena activities involve interaction with horses, as well as processing phases in which participants reflect on their own inner experience of the interaction, the behaviour of the horses, the reaction of a horse/horses toward them, and the personal meaning of the interaction in terms of their life. While there is evidence of the utility of equine assisted psychotherapy (EAP) for young people, teens and adults, the available studies suffer from many weaknesses when measured against the golden standard of evidence-based practice. Authors have described the therapeutic value of horses as situated in the fact that their behaviour is based on experiences in the here-and-now, they are incapable of deception, and they provide immediate and honest feedback on the behaviour of the person interacting with them. Although many people state that horses can perceive humans' innermost feelings and "mirror" their inner experiences, there is not enough empirical support for such a statement. In terms of evidence-based studies, the support for EAP programmes are mixed and tenuous at present. Part of the problem is that the very nature of horses that make them suitable for therapeutic use, also make it impossible to create a manualised treatment protocol that would allow practitioners to assess the value of EAP activities, especially when such programmes are conducted in the community. There is however, sufficient evidence from different studies that - although it cannot be described as a superior treatment - EAP is beneficial to many who have used such services
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