Type of service: Play and leisure

Avon Riding Centre provides the positive experience and proven therapeutic benefits of horse riding to hundreds of children and adults with a wide range of complex special needs each year. Set amidst one hundred acres of pasture and ancient woodland, the Centre offers a calm, relaxing space in an apparently rural setting - yet it is located only fifteen minutes from the centre of Bristol, the economic hub of the South West.

At Avon Riding Centre we work with adults and children living with over 30 physically and mentally challenging conditions including Attention Deficit Disorder, autism, Asperger's Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Dyspraxia, Down's Syndrome and Multiple Sclerosis.

Therapeutic riding involves teaching the necessary skills and techniques required to ride a horse as independently as possible. The emphasis is not only on the physical benefits of riding, but also on development. It is used to improve the balance, co-ordination, focus, independence, confidence, motor and social skills. Therapeutic riding is known to benefit people with a wide-range of physical, mental or learning disabilities, as well as helping to relieve more general conditions of stress and anxiety.

Aimed at: Adolescent , Adult , Child

Specialisms: Has autism-specific elements

Other specialisms: Challenging behaviour, Learning disability