Stable Futures was created in 2019 as an extension of our residential
children's services business, Amegreen Children's Services.
We tailor outdoor learning, therapy and equine services to your child's individual needs.
We have extensive experience with children in care and strong links with the wider community to be flexible and responsive to children who need an alternative package to their education. Born out of the need for a safe, natural, therapeutic space, the Stable Futures facilities, outdoor learning packages and herd of horses and ponies have become a part of each child's treatment plan.
This unique blend of outdoor learning and therapeutic horsemanship, creates a neutral, natural space for children to be themselves outside of the familial unit.
Meet the Stable Futures Team
Gary Carlin
Owner & Founder of Stable Futures
Although culturally horses were far from the norm for my family, my journey with horses started at a very young age following a chance encounter with some semi feral ponies. This was to be the start of lifelong love and interest in these amazing creatures.
The healing benefits of horses have proved invaluable in my own life's journey, and I feel blessed to be in a position where I hope to share this amazing therapeutic model.
28 Years in Social Work including: Child and Adolescent residential care, family assessments, mental health and child protection LAC (Local Authority).
Currently the joint owner and Director of Amegreen Children Services alongside Rachel Redgwell, Amegreen Children's Services offers care and treatment to children and young people who have experienced Developmental Trauma.
Credentials:
Social Care Qualifications:
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M.A Therapeutic Child Care & Management/Advanced Social Work Award / Diploma In Social Work
LEAP Registered Practitioner:
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LEAP have been leading the field of Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy and Learning since 2006, making them one of the most established training providers in the UK
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DBS checked
A personal journey alongside professional skills
Rachel Redgwell
Owner of Stable Futures
Rachel began her Residential career over 25 years ago when she first found began her career in children’s homes. Through the years Rachel has excelled in all roles she has taken on, while she studied for her social work degree. She has run homes as a Registered Manager and a Responsible Individual for Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs and also for Learning Disabilities and Crisis Intervention. Rachel has managed staff teams of over 180 members and has won prestigious awards for the incredible work she continues to immerse herself in. In 2020 Rachel won the “Outstanding Contribution Award” for recognition and contribution to children’s social care.
Through Rachel’s role as Southeast Regional Lead for ICHA (Independent Children’s Homes Association), she has contributed to national change in the sector in a variety of ways, and she continues to offer other professionals support and guidance when most needed. This has included promoting and triggering changes to national developments with the DfE, Ofsted and ICHA.
Rachel has a passion for safeguarding that has driven local and national changes which have been adopted by the Police. Rachel has helped the Police develop protocols to support children in care and she continues to advocate for them as a minority within society.
Rachel is DDP trained and shares Gary’s interest in providing young people with nurturing, therapeutic environments, as a way of healing trauma and re-building how they view the world.
A personal journey alongside professional skills
Emily Clayton
Centre Manager
‘It is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars’
My passion is to change mind-sets, remove barriers and stigma, offer hope, and empower individuals to live a life worth living. Focus on what’s strong, not what’s wrong.
My career to date has been undertaking roles where I work with people to reach their personal aspirations. Whether this is as a manager, senior support worker, an EDI specialist, or professional recruiter, the end goal is to support that individual on their own unique pathway to achieving success. I offer over 15 years of lived experience in supporting family with long term mental health distress and bereavement by suicide from both a child and adult perspective.
Previously having worked for 7 years within an Oxfordshire based charity, as the Social Recruitment manager/ EDI specialist and Head of Wellbeing in the workplace, I am delighted to have the opportunity to take on the new challenge of Stable Futures Centre Manager. This is where I can utilise my professional and lived experience to support and develop a service that offers the opportunity for social impact and the potential to change young lives.
I offer skills and experience in the development and implementation of new business and a social enterprise; this allows me to continue to develop our offerings at Stable Futures. I also offer a strong business development skill set and the ability to engage at all levels from stakeholders/ commissioning bodies, Senior leadership teams, local authorities, to frontline workers, which supports our vision of enabling as many young people to access our services as possible.
Coming from an extensive professional experience in working with disadvantaged pathways such as Post 16 / Young People, Refugee & Migrants, Drug and Alcohol, Mental Health, homelessness, prison leavers and ex-military, both within the UK and overseas in New Zealand. Within these roles, valuable transferable skills such as working within the framework of PIE (Psychologically Informed Environment), TIC (Trauma Informed Care) & Strength based practices, can be implemented into the work we undertake to support staff and young people at our alternative provision.
Emily shared with us, ‘my long-life passion for horses, combined with supporting individuals to find hope and recovery, this is my ideal role to do my very best for our young people’.
Credentials:
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DSL Trained 2023
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Current: Leadership and management L5 Operations Manager Apprenticeship
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BA Honours Drama & Theatre Studies – 2.1
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Accredited training - Level 2 - The Foundations to Being an Effective D&I Leader
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PIE (Psychologically Informed Environment) and TIC (Trauma Informed Care) and Strength bases practice training
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Evidence Base Supported Employment 1 & 2 – (IPS model) Auckland, NZ - MHES (Mental Health Employment Services) 101 Training- Auckland, NZ
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8 week Mindfulness Course
Kay King
Consultant
I am a qualified Psychotherapist and have worked with mental health in adults and young people since 2017. I have worked with residential children's services since 2019 and currently combine this to support providers with their individual needs. I work with Stable Futures and Amegreen Children’s Services supporting staff teams with their reflective practice enabling them to have a deeper understanding of attachment disorders and how to recognise trauma responses. I have studied many models of therapy including transactional analysis, psychodynamic, person-centred, CBT, and attachment theory. I am trained in DDP level 1 and offer training to professionals who are working with children and young people who have experienced trauma in therapeutic parenting and PACE.
My aim is to work with the therapeutic relationship to help children and young people to feel safe and supported with their emotions and mental health. To support staff teams to manage challenging behaviour and to encourage reflective practice for anyone working with trauma.
Credentials:
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BACP member
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Level 4 and 5 in Psychotherapeutic Counselling
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DDP level 1 trained
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Member of National Association of Therapeutic Parents
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Enhanced DBS checked
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Train the Trainer trained
Danielle
Learning Mentor
Danielle joined Stable Futures in October 2022 as a Learning Mentor.
Danielle is committed to supporting young people to achieve their best and overcome barriers that they may face along the way.
Danielle offers an eclectic array of transferable skills and experience that is niche to Stable Futures. Combining professional, personal, and lived experience within the care sector, children with learning difficulties and the equine field, Danielle was so excited to secure the post with us!
Offering 6 years’ experience as a senior carer in the elderly care home, Danielle has the caring and empathetic skills to support our young people. With previous experience also within the equine sector, Danielle was fortunate to own 12 horses, all various breeds, including newborn foals. This allows Danielle to successfully develop and deliver specific equine learning sessions for our young people to engage in and working closely with the animal care workers.
Danielle also comes with a number of years of Lived experience, relevant to the work she is undertaking at Stable Futures. – Danielle shares her experience, ‘ I have a lot of beautiful family members with various mental health and learning difficulties, such as bipolar, autism and ADHD.’
‘It was when undertaking a volunteering role for a holiday scheme for young people with learning support needs, that also sparked my desire to take a career move to work with young people in a professional capacity.’
Credentials:
A* English , A* Biology A* Health, Social and child Development (GCSE)
A-Levels
Biology/ Media Studies/ Psychology
Previous horses owner to 12 horses
Isabel
Learning Mentor
Isabel joined stable Futures in October 2022 as a Learning Mentor.
Isabel is regarded as an enthusiastic and motivated team player who has a passion for supporting young people in all aspects of life.
Isabel offers a wealth of experience working with children. With a previous background of working in a primary school for 17 years, Isabel became a nurture group practitioner in 2012 and was one of a team of three which set up a nurture group aimed at pupils that find the mainstream classroom challenging.
Isable has a passion for developing and delivering learning activities that build the young people’s social skills and to help them to recognise and regulate their emotions. Isabel prides herself on being able to adapt conversations with a wide range of young people to support the management of their own emotions and support them to achieve self-regulation.
Isabel also values and views ‘discipline’ as an integral part of behaviour management. Isabel states that ‘Through using a Therapeutic Thinking approach this enables me to understand young people and in turn creates a positive rapport with them’.
Isable currently works at both our main stables site, as well as leading on our new forest provision, offering sessions such as Archery, Woodland Walks, Exploring Nature and its natural habitats, as well as supporting our young people to manage risk via our zip wire, balance beams and assault courses.
Credentials:
Nurture Group Practitioner
Level 3 Diploma in supporting Teaching & Learning
17 years’ experience of working in mainstream education.
Emma
Learning Mentor
Emma joined the Stable Futures team as a Learning Mentor in December 2022.
Emma is referred to as our Artsy/Crafty learning mentor! Emma has a fantastic array of arts and crafts skills, with the ability to develop and deliver numerous workshops across each term, which reflects specific themes and celebration days.
Emma shared with us;
‘I have a practical, calm attitude, I love being creative and helping children unlock their own artistic skills and the pride they have in themselves.
I’ve helped my children’s school and after school clubs, on school trips, with reading, Forest school, art projects, planning and hosting leaving parties and school fairs. I love entering the village scarecrow competition as a family and watching the children interacting with the characters we create; we have one of our Harry Potter scarecrows on permanent display at the museum of Rural life in Newbury’.
Emma has also previously worked in a cattery, where she has undertaken various courses, including Cat & Dog Emergency First Aid and Level 3 Animal Care. These skills all contribute to supporting our wonderful animals at Stable Futures!
Credentials:
Cat & Dog Emergency First Aid
Level 3 Animal Care
Medication 1 and 2 trained
Self-Harm and suicide training
Buccal Midazolam Administration
Liz
Animal care Worker
Liz joined Stable Futures as our Yard Manager in June 2023.
Liz had previously been working as a senior support worker within the adult support service, specialising in learning support needs for adults. Liz was supporting and leading a team of staff to ensure that all adults engaged and were supported to develop and thrive in their day to day lives. Liz was also responsible for running a therapeutic horticultural centre for adults, so is fully aware of the benefits that come with alternative provisions.
Alongside her work, Liz is an experienced horse owner, where she has worked with horses for her lifetime. Liz is experienced in all aspects of equine care and excels in her ability to share her vast knowledge with others. Liz builds safe and caring relationships with our young people, where they feel confident to take that step into supporting and working with our horses.
Liz also has a long career that stems back to entering the professional workforce as a qualified nurse, where she supported and cared for a number of individuals. With this dedication to caring for people, Liz was thrilled to secure a role that allowed her to utilise all of her skills.
Liz leads and supports with the development of our equine facilitated offers, bringing her team of animal care workers together to create bespoke offerings for all that access Stable Futures.
Liz shared with us, ‘I am aware of the power that horses bring, where they are very emotional and perceptive animals, being able to mirror how someone is feeling. They can support the healing process in people’.
Credentials:
Extensive experience within the equine sector
Qualified Nurse
Trained support work
Sarah
Freelance animal Care worker
Sarah joined Stable Futures in October 2022 as a freelance equine care worker, supporting with the bespoke daily care for our horses on a part time basis.
Sarah comes with a lifetime of experience looking after her own horses, where she has been fortunate to have bred 3 foals, which have been backed, produced and competed by herself.
With this extensive lifetime experience within the equine sector, this is conveyed in Sarah’s vast knowledge of all aspects of equine care, which allow our horses to be thoroughly spoilt and care for to the highest of standards. This knowledge is now shared with our young people that engage in the equine work.
Alongside working for Stable Futures, Sarah currently is the owner to two horses, a pony, as well as her daughter’s young competition horse.
As a keen equine competitor in eventing during Sarah’s youth, she now support’s her daughter in her eventing career. This is something that our young people are always keen to hear about.
Sarah previously worked for approximately 10 years as a registered childminder, looking after children from 9 months of age to 11 years old. This experience is another attribute to be utilised at Stable Futures, where Sarah has a wonderful and natural rapport with our young people, supporting to facilitate the equine facilitated learning sessions during the week.
Sarah classes herself as an ‘outdoors person’, where she often enjoys lots of forest walks to really embrace nature. A memorable regular trip for Sarah as a child was to a pond where she would witness firsthand the lifecycle of frogs.
Emma
Animal Care worker
Emma has been with stable futures since March 2023, when she started volunteering for us as she helped bring two rescue ponies which we have now adopted by Stable Futures. Emma then joined the team in a paid capacity since September 2023.
Emma has worked with SAFE (Saving abandoned fly-grazing equine) since March 2020, looking after very sick ponies/ horses and bringing them back to health to be rehomed. Emma was responsible for running shifts with volunteers and ensuring the right care is given.
Growing up, Emma has been an avid horse rider since the age of 5 years old, where she attended a horse charity in maidenhead. Throughout her childhood/ teen years, Emma had the opportunity to learn everything from handling, stable management, through to riding. It was when Emma turned 18 years old, she took on her first equine teaching challenge, where she taught up to 50 children per session, on how to care for their pony, as well assisting in the running of the yard which comprised of 20 horses.
Emma says;
“Anyone who has experienced a relationship with a horse will understand this. There is a great bond between a horse and human, including mutual respect and trust in each other. They seem to be able to sense our mood and try their best to do as we wish, even if it does not seem natural for them.
You have to earn the respect of a horse! They don’t care what you look like, how clever you are or how important your job is, and I love this. I am really pleased I found Stable Futures and being part of this amazing team."
Evie
Animal Care worker
Evie joined the equine team at Stable Futures in September 2023.
Evie is an extremely accomplished rider, offering a vast array of equine knowledge and has owned her own ponies and horses since the age of 6 years old.
Growing up, Evie has had the opportunity to contribute to the training and education of many young horses, including been privileged enough to work with stallions and has also previously owned one in the past herself. Evie has also previously worked at a local riding school where she taught young children and adults how to ride and care for horses of all kinds.
Currently, Evie Competes her own horses regularly up to a very high level (British eventing (BE) 90 and British showjumping (BS) 1.20). Our learner that attends Stable Futures are very fortunate to have weekly riding demonstrations from Evie, where they can see our horses and ponies in work.
Alongside the world of equine, Evie has also recently completed her studies in physical education, medical science and child psychology at college. Evie’s long-term career goal is to become a qualified riding instructor.
Martha
Animal Lead Tutor
Martha joined Stable Futures in September 2023 as our Animal Care Lead Tutor.
Martha previously spent 5 years working with children and young people with complex autism and associated learning difficulties and challenging behaviour. Martha prides herself on being able to work as part of a multidisciplinary team to deliver a child centred approach to learning ensuring that outcomes are achieved and - most importantly - a lot of fun is had along the way.
Prior to this Martha spent 2 years working in end of life and palliative care where she gained valuable experience in supporting the family as a whole through challenging decisions and experiences.
Martha is a Group Coach with Riding for the Disabled (RDA) and enjoyed many years working with horses before joining the care industry. Martha has a competitive background (BSJA and BE) and although she now only rides for pleasure, enjoys sharing her knowledge and life experiences with our young people helping them to think about possible future career paths and ensuring that they have the right tools and knowledge in place to enable them to follow their dreams.
Credentials:
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RDA Group Coach
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Level 3 Certificate in Supporting Teaching and Learning
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Priors Court 3 Day Structured Teaching Course
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BSc(Hons) Equine Studies with Science
Victoria
Forest School Program Co-ordinator
Victoria, also known as V, joined the stable futures team in January 2024, as Forest School Program Lead.
Working previously in SEMH schools, she started her career as a learning assistant over six years ago before taking on a forest school. Having a child centred approach and practical learning and teaching based skills, V Is passionate about providing a full and engaging experience outdoors.
From there she has developed her skills in survival, bushcraft, outdoor education and learning through practical means. She is a dedicated advocate for working with hands on learning. V advocates using different tools and acquiring life skills, as well as understanding how to learn a trade. V often talks about careers when she teaches and how skills can transfer from one part of life to another.
Being a creative, passionate and crafty tutor, she is able to give a child centred approach to all ages from 4-19 years of age.
Previous Experience:
-Bringing history to life
-Science outdoors
-Cultures and their holidays
-Handmade gifts
-Bushcraft
-Wildlife
-Survival
-Design and Technology
-Carpentry
-Small animal care
And continues to develop her knowledge and learning with each year.
Credentials:
-Animal care LV 2,3,4
-Bushcraft
-Dog Grooming
-Mental health First aid
-First aid
-B-tech Biology
-Batchelors degree Street Arts and performance
A blend of social care, education and therapeutic horsemanship
Our credentials:
Animal Activity Licence:
We hold a Four Star Licence with Basingstoke and Dean Council.
Social Care Qualifications:
M.A Therapeutic Child Care & Management/Advanced Social Work Award / Diploma In Social Work.
LEAP Registered Practitioner:
LEAP have been leading the field of Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy and Learning since 2006, making them one of the most established training providers in the UK.
The Stable Futures Team are all:
Enhanced DBS clearance | Fully trained in Safeguarding Children and Young People | Team Teach trained | Trained in Therapeutic Techniques to support children with complex SEMH | Receive regular professional supervision.
Amegreen Children's Services
Therapeutic Residential Care for Children & Young People
Providing specialist therapeutic residential care and treatment for children and young people aged 5 to 18. It has developed from a children’s home service which has been in place since 1990. The service is situated in rural surroundings in West Berkshire.
All homes share a common ethos and all have Ofsted Good or Outstanding Provider status.
