Wilderness Retreat
Our wilderness programme is based at Hendre Goed near our cottage in the Snowdonia National Park. Remoteness, isolation and tranquillity provide sanctuary unencumbered by the demands of urban everyday life.
The programme’s emphasis is on healthy living and routine. The natural rhythm of the day creates the reliability and continuity that has so often been absent in the young person’s experience. There is encouragement to participate in the basic requirements of everyday life; keeping warm [collecting wood for the fires], feeding and exploring relationships and how they work. There are opportunities to engage in challenging and rewarding experiences like white water rafting and climbing. Not least there is a spiritual dynamic. All of the young people and adults who have spent time at Hendre Goed have been awestruck by the power of the environment and their position in it. For most it has been a unique and transformative experience.
Equine Therapy
Equine Assisted Psychotherapy places troubled young people into a natural setting with the use of horses. This is a unique and innovative therapeutic approach and is designed to help young people explore areas of their personality that have proved to be, in some circumstances, destructive to self and others.
Most of these youngsters through the years have often experienced dysfunctional connections with dysfunctional systems. When these young people are introduced into the wellness of nature, in the form of a meaningful relationship with a horse, they are naturally inducted into a system which is already well. The horse can be summarised by one attribute, awareness. Through their instinctual awareness the horse provides the recipient with instant and honest feedback about everything, or everyone, with whom they interact. It is through this process that the young person experiences a functional connection for maybe the first time in their life.