“Littles” and their big brother or big sister are partaking in a new pilot program that weaves the elements of different life skills into forming relationships with animals.

Three matches with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Zanesville are currently participating in the summer pilot program that partners with Breaking Free Therapeutic Riding Center.

“There’s three matches that are in the pilot program right now doing this, it’s like the big and the little, they go and they partner together with a specific horse and they get to build the relationship with the horse from the ground up,” Sawyer James, Program Director with Big Brothers Big Sisters, said.

The six-session program allows each match to form a relationship with the specific horse they are paired with while learning to properly care for and interact with that animal.

“Each session it’s a new lesson that they learn that helps them do relationship building and communication skills, teamwork skills,” James said.

While each pair is focusing on communicating and building a healthy relationship with a horse, many of the interpersonal skills that are learned apply to children’s everyday lives while interacting with their classmates, friends, guardians and family members.

“All of the lessons they do intertwines with human relationships, as well, because you know you’re needing to read a person and how they’re reacting to you and their body language to you and how just how to interact with people and communicate,” James said.

With the pilot program, the goal is for both organizations to experiment with the program and, through feedback and evaluation, decide if it’s an opportunity that should be incorporated into the yearly programming.

Throughout the duration of the program, James said she has received positive feedback from all of the matches involved and hopes to continue offering the program.

“I’ve had emails from a few of my bigs, some of my volunteers, saying that as soon as they left their littles couldn’t stop talking about it, they were super excited about it, they didn’t expect to have such hands-on training with horses,” James said. “And a lot have never been around a horse or rode a horse or have touched a horse, so they were just super excited to be fully hands on, and that’s the goal for Breaking Free especially with this program.”

Moving forward, James said, as long as there is interest among volunteers and children involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters, her goal is to continue partnering with Breaking Free.

“We’re, as an agency, very happy for the partnership with Breaking Free and that, you know, people are starting to want to have partnerships with us to help our matches,” James said.

Big Brothers Big Sisters partners with many organizations to offer a variety of experiences to the children and volunteers involved in its programming. Any organization interested in partnering with Big Brothers Big Sisters for different programming efforts can contact Sawyer James at 740.453.7300.