In 2023/4, thanks to funding from the Shackleton Foundation, we have been able to offer 20 equine assisted therapeutic and learning retreat places. The Life Hack Retreat was designed to help care experienced young people gain life and work skills and accredited qualifications; the Alpha Mare Retreat was designed specifically to help young women overcome trauma through equine assisted peer support. 

This year via the Life Hack project, 28 young people who would never normally have the opportunity have gained accredited, vocational qualifications in land-based skills and animal care.

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Six scholarship recipients with lived or professional experience of trauma have undertaken accredited equine assisted learning practitioner or therapeutic riding instructor training. 

Over the next year, Lindsey will be conducting research into therapeutic riding as an intervention for developmental trauma with a particular focus on fostered and adopted  children and young people. She will be travelling to host organisations across the United States to find out more about best practice. A report will be created from the results of this research and published as a resource on this site. This research has been made possible by a Churchill Fellowship.

We are currently working on a groundbreaking resource for adult survivors of trauma. This book, entitled Riding through Trauma, will explore the healing and teaching capacities of horses, share stories of how horses help people recover and offer step-by-step mounted and ground-based activities that can be used by Equine Assisted Services professionals as well as individual horse owners. Riding through Trauma is going to be a must-read for anyone interested in the mutual healing that can take place when horses partner with people.