Mental Health & Substance Abuse

For populations experiencing mental health or substance use disorders, Special Equestrians offers weekly group programming that targets emotional growth.

Every horse is naturally intuitive. Their body language and responses can mirror what its human partner may be feeling. Because of their non-judgmental and accepting nature, horses allow their riders to establish trust and self-awareness through engagement in mounted and unmounted activities that are designed specifically to improve self-confidence, self-regulation and provide a sense of responsibility.

Special Equestrians meets with each community partner in advance in order to develop an individualized program that best suits the need of their client population. More in-depth work takes place at our therapeutic riding center; however, we also are able to bring horses to our community partners for one-hour visits. One of our partners, Libertae, a women’s residential treatment center, brings several mothers and their kids to our barn to work on increasing self-confidence and their ability to trust others more easily.