This blog was created for my Girl Scout Gold Award project. My project seeks to educate volunteers on how to handle horses for hippotherapy lessons, and to make them more comfortable while volunteering at hippotherapy centers. Hippotherapy is a therapy where children and adults with disabilities take horseback riding lessons. The movement of the horse helps them become stronger and improve in their individual areas of disability.
Hippotherapy is not a well known type of therapy, and majority of the centers are supported by volunteers. It is difficult for these centers to get many volunteers because most people are typically timid with horses and do not know how to handle them. Spreading the word about volunteering at hippotherapy centers helps them get more volunteers because when there aren't enough volunteers on a certain day lessons get canceled and children don't receive the therapy. If there are not enough volunteers for a lesson it can be unsafe for the rider; Safety comes first when riding horses. To help centers with this I've created 3 separate videos on how to lead and sidewalk a horse, groom a horse, and put on/remove the tack needed to ride a horse. Please help by sharing these videos with your neighborhood and communities.
Hippotherapy is not a well known type of therapy, and majority of the centers are supported by volunteers. It is difficult for these centers to get many volunteers because most people are typically timid with horses and do not know how to handle them. Spreading the word about volunteering at hippotherapy centers helps them get more volunteers because when there aren't enough volunteers on a certain day lessons get canceled and children don't receive the therapy. If there are not enough volunteers for a lesson it can be unsafe for the rider; Safety comes first when riding horses. To help centers with this I've created 3 separate videos on how to lead and sidewalk a horse, groom a horse, and put on/remove the tack needed to ride a horse. Please help by sharing these videos with your neighborhood and communities.
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