The Children's TherAplay Foundation is a not-for-profit pediatric outpatient clinic just north of Indianapolis that serves children with special needs. But that’s only the beginning of the story.

Children’s TherAplay is one of the few clinics in the country dedicated to providing physical and occupational therapies on horseback.

Our therapists combine a sensory-rich, child-centered clinic with hippotherapy – the movement of horses – to provide carefully graded motor, sensory, and neurological input.
 

What makes Children's TherAplay so special?

Here are five of our very favorite reasons.

1. Our therapists integrate the movement of horses, a form of therapy called hippotherapy, into pediatric physical and occupational therapy sessions.
    
2. While there are many facilities that were created to treat adults and adapted to treat children, Children's TherAplay has always been, first and foremost, child-focused.
    
3. We hear it so often from the families who Children's TherAplay serves: “My child doesn’t realize how hard she’s working in her therapy session. Children's TherAplay makes her treatment so enjoyable that she thinks she’s playing.”
    
4. Children's TherAplay is a not-for-profit organization. Rather than focusing on profits, we are focused on patient care and patient gains.
    
5. Our clinic and heated indoor riding arena mean we can serve patients year-round. And since Children's TherAplay operates throughout the year rather than in short-term sessions, we are able to offer our kiddos continuous, consistent treatment that helps them grow stronger and more independent. 

Our story

Children’s TherAplay came from the most unlikely of beginnings. In 2000, an Indianapolis-area occupational therapist contacted Craig Dobbs, owner of Lucky Farms, about borrowing some of the Lucky horses to help special needs children utilizing an innovative form of treatment called hippotherapy.

Blessed with four children of his own, Craig was happy share some of Lucky Farms' resources to help children in need, especially when he began to see for himself what the therapist had told him to begin with: Hippotherapy works.

In 2001, Children's TherAplay became a not-for-profit organization, still on the grounds of Lucky Farms. In the ensuing years, Children's TherAplay’s founder Craig and other caring individuals helped expand not only the facility, building the therapy clinic and administrative offices we still use to this day, but also the program.

Today we are proud to offer pediatric physical and occupational therapy, both using the tool of hippotherapy, to nearly 150 children each week.

Each day we are honored to contribute to and celebrate the first steps, first words, first jumps, and other remarkable gains of special needs children throughout central Indiana. 

Learn more

Our mission and vision • Pediatric physical therapy • Pediatric occupational therapy

We’d like to say thank you • Getting started at Children's TherAplay • Events calendar • Blog