McIntyre Centre Riding for Disabled

McIntyre Centre Riding for Disabled has provided life changing therapeutic programs for thousands of people with a disability since 1964. The Centre’s mission is to provide equestrian programs for people with a disability for the purpose of therapy, education, enjoyment, recreation and sport. Programs are fun, safe and inclusive for all riders of all abilities. A range of riding and non-riding programs are currently offered to almost 400 young people with a disability each year.· Special Schools Program – Delivered to students from 11 special schools across the Greater Ipswich and Brisbane regions· Saturday Riding Program –Private riding lessons for young people with a disability who attend with their families· Mac’s Stable – A non-riding Animal Care program for senior school students with a disability· Post School Services Program – An equestrian focused program to develop communication, social interaction and work readiness skills· Hippotherapy –A purely therapeutic pilot program which uses the multi-dimensional movement of the horse to provide carefully graded motor and sensory input

A great idea. A worthwhile cause and friendly volunteers. Our local destination for anything that is good and still of value, but not useful to us.

It’s a good place to be a student. Good coaches and the horses are nice. - Katie C.

The McIntyre Centre used to be a local institution with a fantastic reputation for helping people with disabilities.Since HELP took over, they installed their incompetent manager who has no clue how important the localCommunity was to this centre. They lost the support of a huge amount of volunteers and the local pony clubs.Staff moral and retention is bad. Their turnover of staff is approx 40% per year. The volunteers are treated badly and you only have to visit a realRDA centre to see how to the volunteers should be treated.The horses are old, sour and recently the manager tried to sell off two really old ponies.HELP should offload this entity back to the community and take it back to proper RDA principles.Or install a manager who understands and ‘lives’ locally. Sadly this probably won’t happen and the centre will slowly implode. The name of the McIntyre Centre has been tarnished, by poor judgement, bad management and corporate And apart from one recent review they were all pre HELP era.Although HELP were happy to jump in and use them the previous management deserve the credit NOT the existing manager

Wonderful place!