The aim of all Thrive’s work is to use gardening to change the lives of disabled people. Its work with individuals and organisations teaching practical and creative ways to use gardening includes training disabled people to prepare for a job in horticulture.
All the work is underpinned by research into how gardening helps people.
At Battersea Park, Susan works with four horticultural therapists. She is humbled by the results she has seen: “There is tangible evidence that gardening creates a sense of wellbeing. There are so many things you can do with gardening - you can enable people to develop, achieve and feel good about what they do and themselves. There’s something about planting a seed and watching it grow that makes everyone feel good!”
The theory sounds simple but the potential results are complex, especially when gardening becomes a route for disabled people with to prepare for work and gain qualifications.
“There are all these employers in parks and green spaces around London saying they haven’t got the people they want, and on the other hand skilled disabled people who want to work. So we designed a new training programme ‘Working it Out’ to address that issue. It started in November 2009 at Battersea Park.”
Susan welcomes the recent involvement of Lantra’s Growing Awareness project, in partnership with the London Development Agency, to fund the establishment of the new Level 2 qualification in Work Based Horticulture.
Susan’s own gardening passion and her role as a special needs school governor influenced her decision to join Thrive. Now her three decades’ experience in the City, initially as a chartered accountant and later working in investment banking, is being used at Thrive.
“I was keen on the idea that learning and gardening aren’t necessarily separate things. Gardening isn’t just about training to be a gardener. It can help people to learn in less conventional ways.”
Susan is only sad that she doesn’t do as much practical gardening as she would like at work - but she does constantly redesign her garden at home.
“When I joined just 17 people a week gardened with Thrive in the park. Now we have nearly 60. One of my remits was to build the business - and it is a business, so I’m using my skills in business planning, marketing and developing new projects. It has to work both financially and socially. One thing we want to do is show the public the skills our gardeners have,” she says.
They are plain to see in Thrive’s 800 square metre main garden, their 1200 square metre herb garden and their renovation work on Battersea Park’s Old English Garden. All the gardens are kept looking good throughout the year and the retail area displays and sells the results.
Susan is especially keen on opportunities provided by the Old English Garden, where Working It Out has just started. Working to a schedule and a standard, unemployed disabled Londoners gain work skills and train for the new NPTC Level 1 and 2 qualifications in Work Based Horticulture, approved by QCF in August 2009. This is a one to two-year programme (the flexible duration enables people to progress at their own pace) to give them a taste of real work.
“This is very new and exciting,” she says. “The London Parks and Green Spaces Forum tell us this is only the set-up of its type in London and possibly nationally.”
Thrive has partnered with the Park’s maintenance contractors, Connaught Fountains, who will provide trainees with a two-week work placement with one of their teams.
“This placement allows us to establish how work-ready a person is and the trainee can tell us how they found the experience. Through this we decide what to focus on for the remainder of their training programme.”
Susan is frank in saying that often there are real and some perceived barriers that make it difficult for disabled people to progress towards work. Training programmes can have entry level or attendance requirements that might not work for an individual who has learning or mental health difficulties and perhaps low self esteem, poor social or communication skills.
She is humbled by what she has witnessed working with Thrive: “The way we operate is structured and businesslike, so it feels like a work environment. This is a way of lifting people’s sights whilst creating a route that is manageable.
“Our courses include the NPTC Entry Level programmes in horticulture and life skills for adults and, through a two year programme called Growing Options, for 14 to 16-year-olds with complex needs. Thrive’s approach for this age group uses gardening as a personal development tool to help the transition from adolescence and adulthood which can be very difficult.
“Even if people with us are not in specific training schemes, a lot of our work is about improving their work and life skills, such as planning and decision-making, which are all pre-vocational skills.”
The results of Thrive’s work are encouraging. Susan enjoys seeing people improve their life skills, work skills and prospects, their communication with others and the expansion of their social life.
The aim is always to enable people to improve their skills, to understand what grows best where and how, to recognise quality, especially important for their retail operation, and to be able to tell people what they do and CAN do.
“A lot of disabled people feel isolated. We’re in a public park and we bring people together. Their social interaction and communication improves, they are happier because they are socialising and that improves their confidence and self esteem here and in their life outside. Gardening also improves physical fitness and overall wellbeing,” she says.
Susan cites one example with a proud smile - a young man who joined Thrive only 18 months ago. Originally uncommunicative and uncomfortable around other people, he is now supporting others at a mental health drop-in centre every week. He has also enrolled on Working it Out and eventually aims to start his own gardening business.
“The real buzz is seeing people realise what they ‘can do’, that they are more in control, that they are good at something. The garden is just a tool that makes them see all that.”
