West Dorset horse charity is offering help to the Marines

Harriet Laurie, the founder of TheHorseCourse, has already proved that using horses to help violent prisoners seems to reduce reoffending rates better than any other intervention for the hardest to reach, disruptive and disengaged offenders.

Sector leaders, CLINKS and NPC have held the charity up as an exemplar. TheHorseCourse's evidence base has even gone through peer review by The Ministry of Justice.

The programme has also now proved equally successful with youngsters referred by Dorset County Council’s children’s services.

Of the youngsters who have attended the five-day course, with problems such as anxiety, depression, anger management, self harm and eating disorders, 80 per cent have shown a reduction in their problem behaviours.

Me and my shadow. A youngster bonds with Merlin

Kirsty Dring, wellbeing leader at All Saints School in Weymouth, which has sent pupils on the course said: “What about the kids who just don’t seem to get anything out of talking? For the first time in years we now have a really effective alternative. TheHorseCourse offers us a new option to prevent exclusion and to reduce mental health issues.”

Ms Laurie and her growing staff use highly-trained horses and an innovative programme to teach calmness, focus, empathy, responsibility, assertiveness, planning, communication and confidence as a learner.

She said: “The results we’ve had with the youngsters are in line with those we’ve had in prisons.

“Our evidence review recently published on offenders was so good the Ministry of Justice insisted on peer reviewing the document and it has now been published by CLINKS, the charity that represents voluntary organisations which work with offenders.

“And another organisation, New Philanthropy Capital, which has been commissioned by the MoJ to improve the standards in the sector has chosen us as an exemplar.”

James Nobel of NPC said: “TheHorseCourse exemplifies the right attitude and approach towards collecting and analysing data in order to test and demonstrate impact as well as develop practice responsively.”

Ms Laurie said value for money, impact and outcomes are the watchwords in all public services and the course is ticking all the boxes.

But what is needed now, she said, is to get more funding, including from statutory bodies, to be able to offer the course to more people.

A youngster learning life skills with help from Flower

She said: “We started very small and local but we have now got 11 facilitators dotted around the country and 16 more part-trained “The challenge now is to roll this programme out nationally and that is going to take an investment.

“We are looking for funders willing to invest in our success and help us scale up rapidly to fill the need.

We have proved it works in the most difficult place, prison, and we have proved it works in the community with young people, we now want to scale that up.

“We are tackling some of society’s biggest problems. That should not be a purely charitable exercise. Statutory funds are also beginning to become available with Children’s Services and we hope that agencies providing for Mental Health and Offending will see the value of our work with people who are not progressing through talk-based interventions, and follow suit”

Hasler Company Royal Marines, set up to help aid the recovery, rehabilitation and re-integration of Royal Marines, is sending eight injured servicemen as a pilot to see if TheHorseCourse can help them.

She is confident it will.