Hello! We're Abbie and Will Richardson, the founders of Daniel's Ride Community Interest Company (CIC).

About Daniel's Ride CIC

Daniel’s Ride CIC is a community-driven organisation founded in 2022 with a simple yet powerful mission: to create spaces where individuals of all backgrounds and abilities can flourish. Our inspiration? The resilience of our son, Daniel.

Based at Harlings in Bere Alston in Devon, we offer therapeutic green care and wellbeing sessions, and educational/training opportunities for young people, and their families with SEND (diagnosed and undiagnosed), and those with poor mental health. Our rare-breed farm is the perfect setting for giving people the space to breath, relax, learn and reflect without needing to be in a 'traditional' education, disability or mental health support setting.

Therapeutic Green Care and Wellbeing Sessions

Our green care/therapeutic/wellbeing work has received the Green Care Quality Mark from Social Farms and Gardens. The benefits of green care in promoting psychological health have been proven by extensive research, including promoting personal development, facilitating social contact, encouraging physical exercise, and in creating a peaceful environment that helps to relieve stress, mental fatigue, irritability, impulsiveness and reduced tolerance. It can help people manage a range of conditions including (but not limited to) Autism and Sensory Differences, ADHD, OCD, Anxiety, Physical Disabilities, Depression and Recovery from Substance Abuse.

Education and Training Centre

Our educational centre is is an accredited centre for the following: ASDAN certified courses, AQA Unit Awards, and Functional Skills in Maths and English Level 1 and 2. We offer an Education Otherwise Than At School (EOTAS) provision, work with those with Educational, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), and those undertaking homeschooling/learning.

Indoor Arena

We also have exciting plans for our upcoming indoor arena in response to the growing demand for our animal-assisted interventions and physical activities.

With the construction of our indoor arena, we’re expanding our equine therapy and training offerings to include riding and carriage driving. Equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and specifically trained equines, we will offer individual and group sessions of no more than four participants, providing opportunities for individuals to connect with our horses and harness the therapeutic benefits of equine interaction.

Why we're raising money

For the past 3 years this CIC has been entirely run voluntarily and on resources (time and money) from us.

We have been successful in securing funding from the National Lottery Community Fund to support some of our work, but are raising money to support our education and wellbeing programme development, support the build of the arena (which we have gained planning permission for - all at our own cost) , and support our volunteers and small team of staff.

We will also use this money to support families/people who can't access our services due to cost implications, enabling the most disadvantaged young people/people to visit us and gain skills, confidence, acceptance and build a support network.

Every little helps with us, and the money raised will go straight into developing and growing Daniel's Ride CIC. Thank you.

Find out more on our website: https://danielsride.org.uk/