Centred Horseplay is an independent charity founded in May 2016, we are based near Cirencester.
We deliver an evidence based ReStart course which is action-based, equine intervention designed to interrupt participants' usual thinking and emotional responses, whilst responsive to their individual pace and needs.
Our target group is unusually broad. We take c.60 referrals into our intensive ReStart programme per year from social care, mental health services, police, education, and specialist services. 75% are CYP. They have not progressed in talk-based services and are at a high level of need.
Typically our participants have a range of problems including social exclusion, offending, victims of violence, anxiety, depression, self harm, ADHA and ASD. Our programmes train people to recognise and manage anxiety or dominance which has been causing them to become disengaged, disorganised, shut down or aggressive.
The overarching need of our CYP is for a service which can help them develop core psycho-social skills so that they have the resilience to manage the challenges that life is throwing at them, whether situational or internal. Our CYP have found talking difficult and therefore need an action-based approach with real impact. For many of these we are often the last resort and we have good evidence that our participants are more willing to engage with other programmes after participating on our course, the ReStart.
During the ReStart we focus on improving eight core resilience skills. Learning is through a series of un-mounted tasks and challenges that increase in difficulty through the week - eg. getting a horse to kick a giant ball, jump a barrel, run, turn and stop in harmony with the participant with no ropes attached. Our horses are carefully selected and highly trained to provide clear and obvious feedback, requiring participants to model the 8 skills for the horse to positively respond and complete each challenge. Skills and habits are coached 'in the moment' - progress is reflected on, celebrated & recorded using our Skills Star, designed to help participants to apply the 8 skills to real-life situations.
