Horticultural practitioners use the therapeutic and mental health benefits of gardening to help others
Therapeutic horticulture facilitates the client’s active involvement with plants or plant-related activities to improve their state of health and wellbeing.
This person centred holistic approach can be part of a rehabilitation process, to help recover after an illness. It can teach people new skills. It can also help slow down the progress of a degenerative illness.
Social horticulture is about the benefits of social connections and interacting when it is enjoyed as a leisure or recreational activity.
The benefits include;
An antidote to loneliness or a place to escape.
Mentally stimulating – can provide opportunities for initiative taking, decision making, creativity and switching off.
Can improve physical health and fitness in many different ways.
Increased self esteem and confidence.
Builds skills – gardening skills, general life skills, literacy and numeracy and communication skills
Group work
Why nature is good for our health?
• Improving mobility through strengthening muscles increasing physical health through exercise.
• Providing a person-centred meaningful activity and having a sense of purpose improves the health and wellbeing of the community.
• Being part of a group reduces the feeling of social isolation and loneliness
• Improving skills progression to employment opportunities.
• Linking people to their local area by connecting communities together
The increasing demand for STH has surged in the wave of covid 19 pandemic and the escalating climate crisis particularly in areas like Oldham and Rochdale which were already severely impacted. Our vision is to emerge as the foremost providers of STH in the north west with our organisation is now poised to expand and meet the growing demands through enhanced support influence and funding. This fund is crucial to enable our scaling up strategy and to drive forward transformation in the region, which has long been neglected within the context of STH.
We have forged a partnership with Salford University securing additional funding from the Ideas Fund to cultivate collaborations in Green Prescribing Toolkits as integral components of social prescribing. We specialise in providing horticultural workshops and training to vulnerable adults and their carers to enhance their lives. We are working with Greater Manchester’s social prescribing network where people are signposted to our horticultural therapy sessions to improve their health and wellbeing.