By Christine Ross, CanTRA Vice President

CanTRA Equine Facilitated Wellness

The last two years have been difficult and everyone has been impacted in some way by the pandemic. Every aspect of our health and well-being has been challenged. The consequence is that the demand for equine facilitated wellness programming has been high. The Canadian Therapeutic Riding Association (CanTRA) is “stepping up to the plate” and has developed a new CanTRA Equine Facilitated Wellness (EFW) program. 

A whole team of qualified professionals have come together to create the new CanTRA EFW program. This has been a very exciting and challenging process and has prompted very interesting research and discussion. 

In January 2022, CanTRA launched the Equine Facilitated Wellness Pilot Project. There are three new documents available from the CanTRA Office. These are the CanTRA EFW Manual, CanTRA EFW Horse Handler Handbook and the CanTRA EFW Accreditation document. 

In future, applications for the following qualifications will be by the submission of a professional portfolio to CanTRA’s EFW Evaluation Panel. This allows for each person to be considered as a unique individual. The portfolio application procedure is covered in the new CanTRA EFW Manual. 

The different qualifications are:

• CanTRA EFW Mental Health Professional 
• CanTRA EFW Educational Professional or Practitioner 
• CanTRA EFW Equine Specialist or Senior Equine Specialist

In addition to the qualifications listed above will be the CanTRA EFW Horse Handler designation. This will allow for selected therapeutic riding volunteers and volunteers interested in EFW to be trained to assist in EFW sessions under the supervision of the Equine Specialist. 

CanTRA EFW Horse Handler Handbook – Programs may purchase a handbook as a reference resource for training, then all subsequent copies purchased by that program will be numbered and assigned to the individual seeking the designation. Following a successful in-house evaluation, a certificate will be issued by CanTRA. 

The CanTRA EFW Accreditation document is for a CanTRA member program to be accredited to add EFW to their established CanTRA programs, or to be accredited as a stand-alone EFW program at a facility meeting CanTRA standards. 

If you are interested in applying for one of the CanTRA EFW qualifications, please contact the CanTRA Office. 

During the Pilot Project, comments and feedback will be welcome. The goal is to provide the best possible programming. 

The CanTRA Mission Statement is as follows:

The Canadian Therapeutic Riding Association — promoting excellence throughout Canada in therapeutic riding and equine assisted therapies through certification, accreditation, and education.

The new CanTRA Equine Facilitated Wellness program is completely in accordance with the CanTRA Mission Statement and will be integral part of the future activities. 

Photo: CanTRA has been offering certification, accreditation, and education in therapeutic riding for 42 years and is now broadening its scope of activity to include Equine Facilitated Awareness. Credit: CanTRA