Hilary Peak

Hilary Peak graduated from Wilson College with a degree in environmental studies. But her original major was equestrian studies.

Peak loved horses.

Horses, however, didn’t seem like enough to build a career on, and after Peak graduated, jobs related to her environmental studies major were hard to come by, so, following a stint as a Five Guys manager, Peak decided to work with children.

Which led her back to horses.

Peak volunteered at therapeutic riding centers, including Shepard Meadows Equestrian Center in Bristol, Conn., where volunteers work with children and adults who have special needs, including autism, depression, and multiple sclerosis.

From there, Peak took a job with a private company as a play therapist. She traveled to different sites to work with children. And what she saw in this job were teachers who didn’t have enough knowledge about children with special needs. It was a gap that Peak believed she could fill.

So, Peak got a job as a toddler teacher with KinderCare in Farmington, Conn.

“I loved it,” she says. “It was an adjustment working with eight children at once, but it was great to be in one location and have a co-teacher to bounce ideas off.”

Peak became a resource for her fellow teachers, sharing her knowledge of children with special needs and how to include them in classroom activities.

“A lot of it is having patience and understanding,” Peak says of working with special needs children. “A lot of children’s behaviors don’t come from wanting to be bad, so teachers have to figure out where the behavior does come from. Children who have a diagnosis can participate. We just have to help them and modify things to include them.”

Today, Peak is a teacher at the YWCA of Central Massachusetts, where she focuses on listening to families and meeting the needs of each individual child. In her work, she is most proud of providing children with the ability to grow in a safe, fun environment.

Covid has been challenging for many reasons, among them the need to limit parents’ access to the program, but Peak and her colleagues are keeping families engaged.

We asked Peak what she wants policymakers to know about her work, and she said:

“Our work is stressful but meaningful. The pay is way too low for the impact we have on children.”

She’d also like to see more of a policy focus on infants and toddlers, not just three- and four-year-olds.

We asked Peak what her favorite children’s book is, and while it would have been great to hear that it was a horse-centered book like “Black Beauty” or “National Velvet,” Peak chose “Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes,” by Eric Litwin.

“It has a great message for children and adults,” Peak says of Pete the Cat who keeps going and stays happy even when he steps in strawberries that turn his white shoes red, blueberries that turn his shoes blue, and mud that turns his shoes brown.

It is a great lesson — even it doesn’t come from a horse.