New Milton dot com - New Milton's Online Magazine, Portal and Directory

My Advert should be here! >>

You are here: Magazine › Country Living (Equestrian, Shooting, Farming etc.) › Introducing...The Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy

Introducing...The Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy

About Us

The FCRT is a residential specialist College, approved for individual student funding by The Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The FCRT is a British Horse Society (BHS) Approved Establishment and Examination Centre, an Approved NVQ and City & Guilds Centre and an Approved Training Organisation.

The Fortune Centre offers students the Further Education Through Horsemastership (FETH) Course, teaching Life and Social Skills to young people with special

needs, using a horse-based extended curriculum. Lasting three years, the students lie between 16 and 25 years of age and must be completely horse motivated. The Course exists to give an opportunity to learn to people who have learning disabilities and behavioural and emotional difficulties. The FETH Course uses the unique and relevant qualities of the horse, utilising the motivation and willingness to learn on the part of the individual, and teaching transferable skills to provide comprehensive basic Further Education and Life and Social Skills development.

Equine Assisted Therapy

Equine Assisted Therapy is used to change the focus from disability to ability. Through the use of horses, the Fortune Centre uses EAT to both achieve learning and provide therapy.

For horse motivated people the horse is at the heart of the exchange of teaching and learning, being used as an alternative seat of learning and understanding. Many naturally occurring routines and activities in a horse environment act as the basis of new understanding. If horses interest and motivate an individual, then learning about them provides a learning purpose. For many people, if traditional methods of teaching and learning have failed to make sufficient impact, and if the individual is motivated by horses, the use of the horse as a learning-teaching-medium, is logical and effective and provides students with both self-confidence and the ability to learn much needed life skills.

In a riding school - or arena - a series of letters are used as markers. These can become a first step of letter recognition and understanding towards building sounds and words. Manipulating a horse from one letter to the other makes it easier to take up a pencil in the follow-up Wordpower session. Riding shapes in an arena of specific measurement begins to open the door to an increasing understanding of numbers, shape and space. Those who have felt defensive over being asked 3 + 3 feel comfortable with telling their teacher that 3 horses in that field and 3 horses in that field means they have 6 horses and thus their confidence increases. Feeding horses is used as a medium to understand weight and

measurements, fractions and quantities.

All are such examples of concepts we assume that others understand but may in the ordinary way find too hard to grasp. Seeing leads to understanding and as people develop their ability, so they can begin to respond to that ability by taking responsibility. If looking after oneself has lost a point - or perhaps it's a skill that's never been developed - learning to care for a horse first can provide an incentive that becomes a personal achievement.

More information on the FCRT can be found on their website at www.fortunecentre.org.
The Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy
(Reg Charity No: 1045352)
Avon Tyrell
Bransgore
Christchurch
Dorset
BH23 8EE