At Stable Lives I feel at home and safe – for the first time in a long time. I can forget my worries and my challenges.
They are scars that I have, but I have learnt that they will not define me. I have hope and aspirations for the future.
Adult Course Participant 2023
Our Vision
To provide a calm, supportive, natural environment where individuals can feel safe when life’s challenges overwhelm.
Our Mission
To work with individuals and their families dealing with, or exposed to physical or mental trauma to enable them to rest, recover and re-connect into society.
Stable Lives is a mental health charity that supports all who are impacted by mental health challenges and those in crisis. With strong foundations of personal experiences, volunteers at Stable Lives recognise the devastating effect that Mental Health Trauma can have on children, individuals and their families.
Our location provides a calm, safe place where people can come to mentally rest, relax and reconnect into society and family life. We do this by using horses and land-based activities to improve confidence, self-esteem and self-worth. The effects of linking those suffering with mental health issues with horses who have been mentally and physically neglected is incredibly emotive and life changing. The development of empathy, compassion and understanding between human and horse is both moving and powerful and provides the groundwork for those to re-build their lives on a firm footing of trust and calm considered friendship and relationship building.
Courses are run by a team of volunteers who bring elite level qualifications from the equine, education and medical professions. Feedback from course participants note the feeling of empowerment, enlightenment and hope for the future. We run our courses with both the individual and their families in mind. Our aim is to equip the whole family with initially respite services then moving into structured rehabilitation into reconnection into society as a team rather than a group of people in crisis.