What is the Join-Up International organization?

Join-Up International is the nonprofit organization founded by Monty Roberts to disseminate his join-up method and the broader principles of non-violence in horse training through trained practitioners, educational programs, and advocacy work. The organization certifies Join-Up practitioners who have completed Roberts's training program and met his standards for demonstrating the join-up method competently and ethically, creating a network of certified instructors who can bring the method to communities that Roberts himself cannot reach directly. Beyond the practitioner certification program, Join-Up International has engaged in advocacy work around horse welfare, working with regulatory bodies and equestrian organizations to promote non-violent training standards and to oppose training methods that rely on pain and fear. The organization has also developed educational programs for young people — introducing horsemanship and the join-up philosophy in school and youth contexts — reflecting Roberts's conviction that the principles underlying his approach to horses have application in human education and relationship more broadly. Join-Up International operates internationally, with certified practitioners in multiple countries, and serves as the institutional vehicle through which Roberts's legacy will be maintained after his career ends. The organization's work represents Roberts's attempt to create a transmission system for his ideas that does not depend entirely on his own demonstrations and appearances — building the infrastructure for the method to outlast its inventor in ways that the Dorrance-Hunt tradition, which deliberately resisted institutionalization, has not.