Our Care Farm Model: Healing, Learning, and Skill-Building Through Experience and within Community

Care Farm & Equine Rescue

Care Farm Program

What is a Care Farm?

A care farm is a place where healing, learning, and growth happen through meaningful engagement with the land, animals, and community within the context of a working farm. Our Care farm offers a trauma-informed, experiential environment where people participate in everyday farm activities that support nervous system regulation, connection, and a sense of purpose.

Activities offered at the farm include:

Caring for animals through feeding, grooming, and meeting needs
Gardening, planting, harvesting, and land stewardship
Seasonal farm routines and meaningful daily tasks
Opportunities for reflection, observation, and gentle engagement
Shared rhythms that build trust, confidence, and connection

Care farms creates supportive spaces where healing unfolds naturally through safe relationships, routine, and hands-on experiences—benefiting children, youth, families, and the animals in their care.

Who the Care Farm Serves

The Care Farm serves youth and families who may be experiencing stress, relational disruption, trauma, life transitions, or social disconnection. Participation does not require a diagnosis or professional referral.

How the Care Farm Compliments Therapy

The Stable Roots Care Farm is designed to work alongside, not instead of clinical therapy and other formal supports. Many individuals benefit from both relational community care and professional therapeutic services.

The Care Farm community can support between therapy sessions through connection, rhythm and regulation.
Experiences on the farm can increase capacity for engagement in therapy
Participants may build trust, confidence, and body awareness that support therapeutic work
Our non-clinical setting reduces pressure while fostering growth and resilience
When appropriate, participants may be supported in accessing clinical therapy services

Equine Rescue

Our equine rescue program offers sanctuary for horses who have experienced neglect, trauma or displacement, while creating meaningful opportunities for people to engage in care, connection, and co-regulation. Through gentle presence, shared rhythms, and reciprocal trust, both humans and horses rediscover safety, belonging and the capacity to heal together. We also have other animals on the farm to connect with and care for including goats, chickens, and Beatrice the mini pig!

Many of the horses welcomed into our care have experienced trauma, neglect, or instability. Rather than being asked to perform, they are offered what they need most: safety, consistency, and relationship.

Through trauma-informed horsemanship and a neuro-relational framework, rescued horses are supported in restoring balance. Gentle rhythms, predictable care, and respectful, consent-based interactions allow horses to move from survival states toward regulation and trust. As horses heal, they invite the people around them into the same process.

Participants engage with rescued horses in ways that prioritize presence over performance. By noticing body language, responding to cues, and building relationship at the horse’s pace through meeting needs, individuals learn to track their own nervous system state, practice regulation, and experience a felt sense of connection. Horses offer immediate, honest feedback that supports awareness, healing, and growth.

This reciprocal healing process supports:

Regulation of human and equine nervous systems
Rebuilding trust after trauma
Development of empathy, boundaries, and emotional awareness
A sense of purpose and belonging through caregiving

Our equine rescue program is not about using horses for therapy—it is about healing alongside them. By caring for horses, participants experience the profound impact of relationship, responsibility, and mutual regulation. In this shared space, both people and horses rediscover balance, resilience, and the capacity to thrive.