Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT) activities contribute to improving the health, the interpersonal and the socialization of the beneficiary involved. Since there is no common approach and technique, there is a great need in creating a space to exchange, develop and establish updated practices. People who are in any relation with horses and their environment are trained to follow rules, respect the timetable and obligations, be patient, respectful and cooperative. At least 25 persons of 6 European countries will participate and benefit from the project directly and more than 600 persons indirectly, since, one of the program's objectives is the dissemination of practices. Greece, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Turkey and Ireland are the countries involved in the proposed project with professionals in education, health and horse management. The project proposal is to update the therapeutic tools in EAT across Europe and at the same time explore and exchange innovative ideas upon them, considering the different cultural and socioeconomic environment in each country.Participants from each organization will be trained in updated therapeutic techniques through seminars and workshops, and then practice and spread this knowledge in their countries. Training and practice will be the tools of the knowledge spreading and supervision and feedback sessions will serve as the evaluation and ensuring tools of qualification level. Professionals working in EAT will benefit from the project's results. All the involved partners believe that it is important for our development and improvement to create a common space in order to learn from each other, ensure the quality of the services that we offer and finally come out with some good practices guidelines. Potentially, this will lead to the officially recognition of Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT) as a therapeutic procedure by all countries and putting high standards in its applications. Therefore, this will help disabled people experience effective therapy from highly educated professionals and also, reduce the costs of other supportive means.
Equine-assisted activities help to improve the health, interpersonal and socialization of the beneficiaries. As there is no common approach and technique, there is a great need to create space for the exchange, development and introduction of up-to-date practices. People who have any kind of relation with horses and their environment are trained to follow the rules, to respect the schedule and obligations, to be patient, respectful and cooperative. Partners from 6 European countries (Greece, Italy, Ireland, Turkey, Spain, Croatia) have collaborated to explore the possibilities of adopting a shared understanding of Equine-assisted Therapy (Therapeutic Horse Riding), a common strategy and cooperate in order to convince the national and European institutions to recognize Equine Assisted Therapy as official complementary therapeutic procedure for people with disabilities (physical and cognitive) as well as people with psychosocial difficulties. During the implementation of the project, three educational activities were carried out on three different thematic areas. The first took place in Italy in March 2017 on 'Psychoeducational Activities in Therapeutic Horse Riding', the second in Ireland in October 2017 on 'Horse Riding Techniques in Therapeutic Horse Riding' and the third in Greece in May 2018 on Gymnastics. About 50 direct participants and about 300 people attended seminars, presentations and meetings to disseminate project materials and results. Two management meetings were held. One at the beginning of the project’s implementation in Athens, Greece (October 2016) where the details of the implementation were agreed and a meeting to evaluate and finalise the materials to be publicized and disseminated, in Berga, Spain (May 2019). An electronic booklet describing the project and containing all the educational materials used during the three learning meetings as well as the participant evaluations was created. Also, a glossary of terminology the names of the different parts of the horse’s body, the educational materials which are used during therapeutic activities/sessions and the horse riding material. All this together with information on partner organizations is published on the project's website (https://www.horsesteachme.eu/en/). This project is one more step of the effort that the therapeutic riding organizations do for the recognition of the Equine-assisted Therapy by National and European Authorities as a therapeutic process for people with disabilities and psychosocial problems.