Please help build our new site to help more people
We're facing the heart-breaking decision to relocate our entire operation, following the discovery that
our current site is making its animals ill.
Our centre, based in Alvaston, provides equine facilitated psychotherapy and therapeutic activities for children, young people, and adults. Our work helps improve wellbeing, self-esteem, confidence and behaviour through interactions with our horses, goats and sheep.
Not everyone finds it easy to relate in a traditional way - the expectations attached to room based therapy, where we sit face to face, may feel overwhelming to some people. Here at Pony Partnerships, we offer a unique flexibility in the way that we work. Therapy can be designed to suit the client, rather than expecting the client to fit into the therapy. We have the capacity to work creatively, by building relationships with our therapists, as well as our animal partners, and the outdoor environment in which we are based.
As well as supporting clients with their general wellbeing and a range of mental health difficulties, some of our more specialist areas included working with neurodiversity (i.e. Autism, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - ADHD, Pathological Demand Avoidance - PDA, school refusal, eating difficulties, BPD, and bereavement.
Our five horses have developed cirrhosis of the liver which has been linked to our fields. We urgently need to move to a more appropriate site to continue our work. We have been based here for three years and purely by accident we discovered that all our horses have liver damage, because the land seems to be toxic to the animals. We’ve now reached the point where we have to move for the sake of their health. If we can't find somewhere to move to, then we will face the heart-breaking decision to close the service and rehome all of our animals.
If and when we have found a site to move to, we need to find the funds and resources to move all of our animals and equipment to the new site, as well as rebuilding all of our infrastructure. Our reserves have been depleted during the COVID pandemic and from the treatments that the horses have needed on top of what their insurance covers. We have also paid to conduct countless tests on the land to establish what the problem is, with no conclusions reached.
If you can help with a donation, or with services such as flat bed lorries (to move our stables and mud control mats), or skilled labour to rebuild our buildings - then please donate or contact us to find out more.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.
Danielle, Naomi, Lisa, Jenie, Paddy, Teddy, Dio, Lola, Beau, Puzzle, Gracie, Harry, Harvey, Hettie, Rosti, Ali, Guinness, and Beamish.
