COMMUNITY, COLLABORATION & CONNECTION
Our outreach has grown quietly and intentionally over the years, led by relationship rather than reach, always with the integrity of the sanctuary at its heart.
We are not open to the public and we do not believe animals need to be made available for human interaction in order for a sanctuary to have a wider impact. Instead, we have allowed meaningful relationships, collaborations and opportunities to develop naturally around the work already taking place here.
From conservation partnerships and research to volunteering, education, wellbeing, advocacy and remote consultations, each strand has grown from shared values and genuine connection. The horses remain free to choose whether or not to engage, the land is respected as a living ecosystem rather than a backdrop, and protecting the peace and autonomy of those who live here always comes first.
For us, outreach is not about how many people we can bring through the gates. It is about how far the values nurtured within them can travel. This enables Springwood to support its wider community while remaining true to its central purpose: providing lifelong sanctuary for animals and restoring a richly diverse landscape beside the River Teifi.
Sponsor Visits
Our sponsors are an important part of the Springwood community, providing regular support that helps us care for the animals and protect the sanctuary they call home. Sponsors are invited once a year for a founder-led walk through the sanctuary, with opportunities to spend time near the herds and connect with individual animals where they choose to engage. These visits offer a chance to experience the place their support helps sustain and to see how their contribution becomes part of the animals’ lifelong care.
Retirement Livery Guardians
Our retirement livery guardians are also an important part of the Springwood community. By choosing for their horses to live here, they enable them to experience the freedom, companionship and security of life within a permanent herd.
Guardians continue to support their own horses financially, while also generously giving their time and practical help to Springwood. In this way, retirement livery has become another form of partnership: supporting individual horses while contributing to the wider life of the sanctuary.
Volunteering at Springwood
Our regular volunteers help with practical work across the sanctuary and its 80 acres. Activities may include habitat creation, tree and hedgerow care, land management and other seasonal projects.
Volunteer days can also incorporate mindfulness, nature observation, time beside the river or lake and shared vegan food. All activities are planned around the needs of the animals and the land.
Volunteer Retreat Stays
We offer a small number of volunteer retreat stays, providing time away from everyday life in the peace and seclusion of Springwood. These stays combine self-guided retreat and immersion in nature with guided volunteering, creating a retreat rooted in service to the animals and the land.
This quiet space has also proved particularly valuable to writers and other creatives needing uninterrupted time and seclusion in which to think, write and create. Several writers have stayed with us while working on their own projects, finding inspiration in the landscape, wildlife and rhythms of sanctuary life.
Guests contribute to the sanctuary through their volunteering and a donation of £50/night towards the care of the animals. Places are intentionally limited, protecting the peace of the sanctuary while offering a meaningful experience of living alongside the land and animals rather than simply visiting them
Wellbeing Days
Springwood welcomes groups from Routes to Discovery (formerly Roots to Recovery) which works in partnership with Mind and Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Participants take part in gentle, purposeful volunteering, mindfulness and nature connection within the sanctuary. Routes to Discovery contributes £100 to Springwood for each visit.
Supporting Young People and Families
A small number of young people with additional needs visit Springwood on separate occasions with their families during the year. Their visits provide opportunities for quiet connection with the horses and participation in suitable volunteering activities around the sanctuary. We are grateful for their support of the sanctuary as sponsors.
We describe this as supported volunteering and nature connection, rather than therapy. The horses are never used as therapeutic tools and remain free to decide whether they wish to engage. The young people and their families are not identified publicly, protecting their privacy.
Holistic Wellbeing, Healing and Connection
Holistic approaches to wellbeing have long been part of life at Springwood, for both animals and people. Over the years, the sanctuary has brought together a range of practitioners and approaches, including herbal medicine, Reiki, Shiatsu, osteopathy, craniosacral work, sound healing, mindfulness and applied zoopharmacognosy – the practice of enabling animals to self-select plants and natural substances.
For the animals, these approaches are always offered rather than imposed. Horses are free to approach, engage, move away or decline altogether, with their responses and choices guiding every interaction. This same principle of listening, observation and respect for the individual underpins much of Springwood’s wider approach to care.
Some of these practices are also shared with volunteers, sponsors and others spending time at Springwood. Sound sessions, mindfulness, Reiki and other facilitated experiences can offer opportunities for stillness, connection with nature and a different way of being alongside the animals.
Springwood also welcomes experienced practitioners who share our values and contribute their knowledge and skills to the sanctuary. Together, these different approaches form part of a wider exploration of wellbeing that recognises the interconnectedness of animals, people and the natural world.
Student Research and Internships
Springwood hosted a University of Stirling master’s student for a university-approved, month-long residential internship focused on animal-human connection.
During their placement, Springwood provided accommodation, education, research support and immersive access to the sanctuary’s distinctive animal-centred environment.
This successful placement demonstrates Springwood’s potential as a setting for postgraduate research, experiential learning and future university-approved internships.
We have also hosted students from Bangor University for residential stays, combining volunteering and immersion in nature with the peaceful seclusion of the sanctuary whilst writing their dissertations.
Springwood Living Research Centre
Building on our existing student and educational work, we are developing the Springwood Living Research Centre as a place for ethical, multidisciplinary research rooted in the lives of the animals and the recovery of the land.
Springwood offers an unusual living field site comprising 80 acres of regenerating grassland, woodland, wetland and riparian habitat, with more than a mile of the River Teifi and a two-acre spring-fed lake. Two established herds of rehabilitated horses live here with freedom of movement, social choice and access to varied terrain and naturally occurring plants.
We welcome enquiries from universities, colleges, students and independent researchers interested in developing respectful, non-invasive studies.
Potential areas of research include:
equine autonomy, social behaviour and trauma recovery;
natural foraging and the self-selection of wild plants;
hoof health, movement and self-trimming;
horses as conservation grazers;
biodiversity recovery and habitat creation;
grassland, hedgerow, woodland and wetland ecology;
river and lake health;
the relationship between nature connection, meaningful volunteering and human wellbeing.
Research at Springwood must respect the autonomy of the animals. Participation is never forced, and the horses are not treated as research objects or used to provide entertainment or therapy.
Depending on the needs of an agreed project, Springwood may offer access to the sanctuary and its habitats, residential accommodation, local knowledge, practical support, existing observations and opportunities for longer-term monitoring. Projects can range from undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations to internships, placements and collaborative research programmes.
The Springwood Living Research Centre is being developed with Dr Rebecca Mead, Springwood’s Founding Research Director. An environmental scientist and experienced field researcher, Becky brings academic and practical expertise spanning environmental science, biological fieldwork, education and animal-welfare research. Her multidisciplinary background considerably strengthens Springwood’s capacity to support students and develop credible, ethical research across the sanctuary’s animals, land and freshwater habitats. The Centre also builds upon Springwood’s successful experience hosting a University of Stirling-approved residential master’s internship.
We are particularly interested in partnerships that produce useful, accessible knowledge for animal sanctuaries, land managers, conservation organisations and others seeking more ethical ways of living and working with animals and the natural world.
Founding Business Partners
Our Founding Business Partners help make Springwood’s wider work possible, supporting the Living Research Centre, conservation and land restoration while becoming part of a values-led relationship with the sanctuary. Through carefully considered visits, staff engagement and shared learning, our partners can experience the work first-hand and contribute to meaningful, long-term change for animals, people and the living landscape.
Find out more about becoming a Founding Business Partner
Animal Aid Collaboration
Springwood contributes to wider public education about the welfare of horses affected by the racing industry. We have collaborated with Animal Aid by providing photographs and sanctuary-based insight for educational campaign materials exploring the realities of horse racing and encouraging greater protection for horses.
Several former racehorses now live permanently at Springwood, where they are free from riding, training and performance expectations. Their lives here help show what becomes possible when horses are allowed to live with autonomy, stability and lasting herd relationships.
Online Consultations – Supporting People and Animals Beyond Springwood
Springwood’s outreach also extends beyond the sanctuary through individual online and remote consultations, supporting people who are seeking a more holistic and compassionate approach to the wellbeing of the animals in their care.
Drawing on many years of study and practical experience in holistic animal care, natural nutrition, medicinal plants, complementary therapies and animal behaviour, Springwood founder Jacqui Howe offers one-to-one consultations by Zoom or WhatsApp. These provide an opportunity to explore an animal’s individual needs, behaviour, environment, diet and wellbeing, while considering the animal as a whole rather than focusing on a single issue in isolation.
A central part of this approach is helping people to observe and understand their animals more deeply, including their preferences, choices and natural behaviours. Where appropriate, consultations may explore nutrition, natural foraging and self-selection, environmental and lifestyle factors, complementary approaches and practical ways of supporting greater autonomy and wellbeing.
In this way, the knowledge and experience developed through caring for animals at Springwood can benefit animals and their people wherever they live, extending the sanctuary’s educational and compassionate outreach far beyond its physical boundaries.
Collaboration with Other Sanctuaries
We are finding a growing community around the world questioning conventional relationships with horses and exploring autonomy, herd life, free choice and more natural ways of living. Springwood wants to connect with that community, learn together and help build an evidence base for another way.
Collaboration with other sanctuaries has already played an important part in our story. In 2023, we gave a forever home to an entire herd of twelve horses when another sanctuary could no longer sustain their care due to lack of funds, grazing and hay. The horses were desperately in need of help, and several could not easily be rehomed conventionally because they needed complete autonomy. Taking the whole herd meant they could remain together and recover without their established relationships being broken apart.
We have also given permanent homes to several former racehorses rescued by other animal sanctuaries who were no longer able to meet their particular needs.
These experiences strengthened our belief that sanctuaries do not need to work in isolation. By sharing knowledge, resources and support, we can create a stronger safety net for animals. Through the Springwood Living Research Centre, we also hope to collaborate with like-minded sanctuaries in the UK and internationally, learning across different herds and landscapes and contributing to more compassionate ways of living alongside horses.
Conservation and Community Partnerships
Springwood works collaboratively with conservation organisations to support the recovery of the land, waterways and wildlife across the sanctuary and the wider landscape.
Through our work with the Woodland Trust and Four Rivers for LIFE, more than 1,500 native trees have been planted across Springwood, creating new areas of developing woodland and strengthening wildlife corridors across the land. Along the River Teifi, Four Rivers for LIFE has also supported the creation and protection of an extensive riparian corridor, with areas of land alongside the river fenced from grazing to allow natural vegetation, trees and riverbank habitats to recover.
These partnerships extend beyond Springwood itself. We actively share opportunities and make connections with neighbouring landowners, helping conservation work continue across boundaries. This has already contributed to further riparian protection along the Teifi, strengthening the potential for joined-up habitat recovery at a landscape scale.
For Springwood, collaboration is an important part of sanctuary. Restoring one piece of land has value, but connecting recovering habitats, waterways and communities can create benefits that reach far beyond our own boundaries.