Small Strides CIC

17/09/2025

🌿🐴 Small Strides CIC Update 🐴🌿

As we step into the first month of the new academic year, we’re already well underway with our annual inspections from local authorities, schools, and other external providers.

These quality assurance checks are an important part of what we do, they demonstrate that our Centre continues to go above and beyond the standards required to provide a safe, supportive, and professional service. ✅

✨ At Small Strides CIC, you can be assured that:

👉 All of our staff are fully up to date with training, supervision, and CPD.

👉 Our policies, procedures, and risk assessments are reviewed and updated annually (and often more frequently).

👉 We are consistently above board, meeting and exceeding the criteria to run our Equine Facilitated Learning & Psychotherapy Centre.

We’re proud to provide a safe, nurturing, and professional environment where people can grow, learn, and heal alongside our horses. 💚

16/09/2025

We believe connected relationships are key to healing trauma and attachment wounds. This is at the forefront of our work.

The felt sense of connection—with ourselves, with others, with animals, with nature, with our conception of spirituality or the divine—is what brings meaning to our lives.

At the end of life, when we look back, achievements and material things will matter much less than the quality of our relationships, our lived experiences of love and care.

In fact, the quality of our relationships affects not just our sense of meaning but also our psychological and physiological health.

As the well-established field of Attachment Theory teaches, we need to form safe, caring bonds with other beings in order to have healthy nervous systems. Secure attachment creates neural pathways that are crucial for the functioning of our brains. In other words, our biology is intertwined with the natural yearnings of our heart.

As mammals, we are born with an innate desire to connect. We yearn for experiences of trust and mutual understanding.

Connected relationships are central to our wellbeing.

Guiding my clients to connect with our herd is one of the most rewarding things I do. A lot of the young people I work with struggle with relationships or friendships, so watching this connected relationship form brings a warm feeling to my heart. The profound transformation it also brings with it is just phenomenal and I love facilitating them on this journey ❤️

13/09/2025

OUR VISION 👇

To improve mental, physical and emotional well-being through connected relationships with horses in nature.

OUR MISSION 👇

We are committed to providing a high quality service, so that our clients can reach a better and more fulfilled level of life. We develop person-centred programmes to motivate our clients to achieve true potential and bring about positive change.

11/09/2025

🐴 Volunteer Opportunity! 🐴

Do you have 2 spare hours a week to make a difference? 🙏 We’re looking for new volunteers to join our team!

Available Shifts:
👉 Friday : Morning 8-10am & Evening anytime after 3
👉 Saturday: Morning
👉 Sunday mornibg

Your role will include:
✔️ Horse Care & Yard Duties: General care, grooming, feeding, yurn out, bring in and yard tasks.
✔️ Enrichment Activities: Spend quality time with the horses – grooming, walks etc

What we’re looking for:

✨ 18+ and able to drive (due to our location near Lansdown/Wick, BS30).

✨ Empathetic, kind, and caring.

✨ Must be confident an experienced working with horses as this is a lone working role and you will be in charge of turn out and bringing horses in.

✨ Self-motivated – natural horsemanship experience would be amazing but not essential!

Why join us?
You’ll get the chance to support horses and contribute to their care while helping us to continue to deliver our services to those most in need.

If this sounds like you, please DM us or email Jenny at [email protected] for an application form.

📍 Located between Bath and Bristol (near Lansdown/Wick BS30).

Let’s make a difference together! 🐴

10/09/2025

🌿🐴 What a lovely day spent with the team of Small Strides facilitators!

Today’s focus was on the theory of facilitating group sessions and exploring how we adapt our Equine Facilitated Learning (EFL) practice when working with children and young people.

We dug into some of the core elements of the Small Strides Model, looking at how to:

✨ Create safety and predictability for groups,
✨ Adapt activities for different ages, needs, and abilities,
✨ Build trust and connection with both horses and humans,
✨ Hold strong boundaries while staying attuned to the unique energy of each participant.

It was inspiring to see how much thought, care, and creativity our facilitators bring to this work whether planning group sessions, adapting for neurodivergent children, or considering trauma-informed approaches.

💫 The horses remind us daily of the importance of presence, intent, and attunement lessons we carry into every session we design.

Once again we also explored how important own personal work as facilitators is.

So much of "our stuff" can show up in sessions with clients and horses and it's so important to be able, to be aware of what this is, where it comes from amd what we can do with it.

We left the day feeling connected, grounded, and excited about the ripple effect this work has on the young people we support. 🌱

10/09/2025

✨ At Small Strides CIC, we believe growth happens in small, steady steps.

Our Equine Facilitated Learning (EFL) programmes are built on the Small Strides Model a trauma-informed approach designed to support children and young people, especially those who are neurodivergent or have experienced adversity.

🐴 With the horses as our partners, sessions focus on:

🌿 Safety & Trust – creating predictable, nurturing environments where children feel secure.

🌿 Choice & Control – empowering children with genuine choices, helping rebuild confidence and autonomy.

🌿 Embodied Connection – noticing breath, body, and emotions through gentle, sensory experiences with the horse.

🌿 Boundaries & Attunement – learning healthy relational skills as horses respond honestly to our energy and intent.

Through grooming, leading, storytelling, sensory exploration, and reflective practices, children begin to:

💫 regulate emotions,
💫 connect more deeply with themselves,
💫 discover their strengths, and
💫 build trust in safe relationships.

Every session follows a gentle flow of Grounding → Connection → Reflection → Closure, supporting children to leave calm, empowered, and ready to take their next “small stride.”

✨ Whether it’s working 1:1 or in groups, our approach celebrates each child’s unique way of being in the world.

💌 If you’d like to know more about how EFL can support young people in care, education, or family settings we’d love to talk.

09/09/2025

We are now fully booked for 1-1 clients here at Small Strides. However, Jenny has opened up a couple of spaces on Tuesdays for Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy or Online or Room Based Counselling. Email [email protected] for more information

09/09/2025

08/09/2025

🌟 Small Strides, Big Changes! 🌟

Im so excited to share the report from Our 12-week Equine Assisted Learning program.

Our Big Steps program is transforming lives by helping children and teens manage anxiety and depression, while building confidence and resilience. 🐴💛

The results speak for themselves:

✨ 86% of participants reported reduced anxiety
✨ 83% experienced a decrease in depression

Spending time with horses isn’t just fun, it has a real therapeutic impact.

Horses respond to emotions in ways that help participants understand and regulate their feelings, build trust, and gain confidence in a safe, supportive environment.

💬 “Working with the horses helped me feel calmer and more in control of my emotions. It really changed the way I handle stress at school ” – Participant

If you want to find out more and begin sessions with us, contact us today to find out more! 📩

06/09/2025

Check out my friends new business page..

Give it a like and a share to show support.

Shes a neurodiversity coach dedicated to empowering individuals embrace their unique strength

Sarah Smaz Szmaglik 💜

Neurodiversity coach dedicated to empowering individuals to embrace their unique strengths.

04/09/2025

What is sensory processing disorder anyway?

READ MORE >>> http://www.thesensoryspectrum.com/sensory-processing-disorder-anyway/