Horses - and hugs - help in a process of caring for children

Mrs Sandra Kreutzer-Brett uses horses as part of a regime that has transformed the lives of many youngsters who have been fortunate enough to end up in her care.

They now form her extended family, and some have flown with her to Australia and America; all receive the best that she and her husband, Robert, can provide.

When the D&S Times called at Ellershaw House, just outside Masham and not far from Grewelthorpe, it was a hive of activity preparing for the 21st birthday of an autistic young man who came to the residential home as a boy. He is one of eight children at present living with a specialist team on the premises.

"My husband and I are mum and dad to them," said Mrs Kreutzer-Brett. "This boy came to us about 9 years ago. Tonight we are all going to the pub for a meal.

"Our students are all here for life, if that is what they want. We have moved 37 children on as they became older, and we can take 12 at a time. We always strive for independence, and a lot of the problems they have are behavioural.

"A lot are very disturbed children when they come here, with problems ranging from cerebral palsy and epilepsy to being generally mentally handicapped."

She lived in Australia for 11 years with her first husband, and it was there that she became a teacher with Riding for the Disabled and was inspired by a little girl who had cerebral palsy.

"I was interested in the therapeutic powers of riding and thought the movement of the horse might help her to stretch her tendons. So she was the beginning of it."

It was her own sister, who suffered from spina bifida, who gave her an insight into the world of the disabled. "She taught me to empathise, not sympathise."

Mrs Kreutzer-Brett has strong views on the shoddy way children with disabilities are sometimes treated.

Ellershaw House reflects the high standards of a woman who has in the past enjoyed a relatively wealthy lifestyle.

"They are often gobsmacked when they come into this setting. They are used to poor quality in everything. Children do better when they have dinner served with a napkin, and if the food is not like Betty's caf, it shouldn't be served here."

The same approach goes for clothes. "I go to the sales in the better shops to get good quality, so they can have a sense of pride."

But things have not always been quite so rosy, and trying to fulfil her dream of having her own school for special needs children came close to disaster.

She had fostered children under the banner of the Riding for the Disabled association in Australia, and continued to do that when she returned to England.

"I had planned after two years to have my own place. I had a business in Harrogate and decided to close it and sell up. I bought this place in 1987 when it was just a 2-bedroom cottage. It now has 17 bedrooms, custom built."

It was when the house was built and poised for business that Mrs Kreutzer-Brett's determination was really tested. "I didn't get any clients for a year," she said.

"I had head-hunted the staff I wanted and I kept them on all that time. Interest rates went up and my mortgage went into overdrive. We had massive debts and interest rates shot up.

"It was only through understanding on the part of our building society that we have managed to survive. It let us establish a pay-back system, but we only got back into profit here in the last two years.

"I became a Christian about 16 years ago, and I felt I had been given one talent, a gift of caring for children with special needs. Looking back I think it was God's way of telling me I didn't need to have the money in the bank.

"I got my first student on the 364th day. We were desperate because we didn't know how long it would be before we were repossessed so we decided we would take people nobody else would touch. Some were very disturbed. That was how we honed our skills.

"I did respite care until my two daughters decided to settle here with me instead of Australia. I wouldn't offer life at first."

The couple have a two-day break away from the house each week. "But we are here day and night the rest of the time, so you have the continuity you don't get elsewhere where staff come in for eight hour shifts.

"It is hard to get stability and make inroads into this kind of hurt and damage in a short time. We also have a highly trained team and they act as one with us. If we decide to ignore a behavioural problem in order to solve it, we all do it.

"Sometimes a child will eat like a pig with his fingers when he first comes to us and it would be too stressful to make an issue of it.

"But when we decide to teach him to eat with a knife and fork we sit down every meal time without fail and do that. Otherwise it would be mayhem.

"You have to have a tremendous amount of trust in your team to know the place runs the same whether you are here or not."

The school has its own tutors and the students have a positive choice programme which includes riding, horticulture, music, art, cookery and handicrafts.

"They also have to understand choices and consequences. At its most extreme, they can give me good behaviour and go to Australia, or be deliberately destructive and stay at home."

Mrs Kreutzer-Brett believes society has gone too far in making people fearful of touching, especially about giving children a hug.

"You have to show people you care. You have to have boundaries. But you can't have discipline without love, and you have to love with some passion to get people to the standards you want to achieve, while being fair and just.

Mrs Kreutzer-Brett has just retired after 27 years as a Riding for the Disabled teacher, the past 17 of which were spent at Stockeld Park, near Wetherby. However, she is one of only 17 senior instructors in the world, and in October will go to Japan for two weeks to train teachers there.