NEW CANAAN MOUNTED TROOP INC

to enrich the lives of young people as they experience the uniqueness of the human and horse connection

to offer a challenging curriculum of equine care and riding classes

to promote responsibility, work ethic, teamwork, and leadership

to assist youth in the development of social skills and to foster personal growth

to empower students to challenge themselves and exceed their own expectations

to enrich the lives of individuals with special needs

to provide therapeutic services that help improve the daily lives of people with a wide range of disabilities.

The NCMT Board of Directors and professional staff demonstrate their commitment to fostering youth development and to enriching the lives of people with disabilities by setting accountability standards throughout the organization in order to:
• Provide educational programs that teach our local youth the principles of leadership, confidence and responsibility and the importance of community service;
• Offer a unique, comprehensive, quality and affordable horsemanship program to the children of our community;
• Provide valuable therapeutic programs for local children and adults with intellectual, emotional, developmental, and physical disabilities that are in strict compliance with PATH Intl professional standards;
• Increase its connectivity with the local community;
• Contribute its organizational resources to benefit the community.

NCMT's strategic plan sets forth priorities for program operations, fundraising goals, financial sustainability and community outreach. The objective is to ensure that adequate resources are in place to fulfill NCMT's mission statement on a durable basis. The plan is developed and reviewed with the input of the Board of Directors to enable evolution and to refine short and long-term objectives.

The NCMT Board of Directors and professional staff demonstrate their commitment to fostering youth development and to enriching the lives of people with disabilities by setting accountability standards throughout the organization in order to:
• Provide educational programs that teach our local youth the principles of leadership, confidence and responsibility and the importance of community service;
• Offer a unique, comprehensive, quality and affordable horsemanship program to the children of our community;
• Provide valuable therapeutic programs for local children and adults with intellectual, emotional, developmental, and physical disabilities that are in strict compliance with PATH Intl professional standards;
• Increase its connectivity with the local community;
• Contribute its organizational resources to benefit the community.

The organization has professional staff employed to carry out its mission and goals; resources to provide the programs; appropriate equine
facilities and a fleet of up to 30 horses.

In the fall of 2017, NCMT introduced changes within its equine care curriculum providing a more "hands-on" approach with interactive components to the weekly lectures. In addition, we added an equestrian team which provides middle school and high school students the opportunity to participate in the Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA), which gives them a chance to compete as part of a team without having to bear the often prohibitive cost of horse ownership. This program has been extremely well received by Trooper families: NCMT students formed a team that is coached at the barn by an experienced part-time instructor, are excited by the challenge of competing at other barns with other riders and have performed very well in the competitions they participated in. IEA participation gives our Trooper students the pride of being part of a team and also strengthens friendship bonds between young people who are very supportive of each other.
Meanwhile, the Super Troopers programs continued to experience significant growth over the past few months. In response to specific demand for private equine care classes, where one-on-one instruction is made available, our therapeutic staff conducted individual classes aimed at addressing the specific needs of children and adolescents with mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.

Based on September 2017 enrollment data, those developments resulted in an 80% increase in therapeutic classes taught by our PATH Intl certified therapeutic instructors during the fall session when compared with the prior year. To meet the increased demand for services, the Therapeutic Coordinator is taking steps to retain an additional PATH Intl certified instructor to support the program development.