Lindengate are a charity based in Wendover, Buckinghamshire who offer a wide range of gardening/horticulture activities for individuals and groups with mental health support needs. Back in 2012, Sian and Charlie, the driving forces behind Lindengate, began thinking about new ways of combining their love of gardening, passion for teaching and desire to provide a meaningful service in their community. They decided to get in touch with Thrive and enrol on one of our training courses.
After attending the 'Setting Up and STH Project’ and the 2 day 'Using STH with people with mental Ill health’ courses, Sian and Charlie went away full of ideas about getting a project up and running. Some months later, Sian and Charlie decided to access Thrive’s expert consultancy services.
In addition to providing sound advice and making our experience and expertise available to them throughout the process, Thrive produced an induction programme for the soon-to-be volunteers and staff of Lindengate.
Having Thrive’s expertise to draw upon has been invaluable through our journey. They told us that putting together an STH project would be all consuming and hard work but very rewarding – and that’s exactly what it has been!
As well as meeting the primary purpose of volunteer training and induction, the expertise drawn from Thrive’s experience provided has been used to make presentations to other stakeholders including referrers and funders.
'The training package has been well-received by all who have gone through it and provides people with both a connection to our cause and the skills to begin supporting us and saved us time in creating presentations to other stakeholders’
Charlie and Sian have used all their passion to connect and partner with many locally and their project is now in full swing. Featured in the Mail on Sunday’s You Magazine, Lindengate are making a positive impression of the Field of Social and Therapeutic Horticulture as well as benefitting the 30 people a week who attend the project.
Thrive were also able to promote Lindengate through social media and in our own newsletter and publications and it has been incredibly satisfying to assist a new project who are enabling vulnerable people to access the positive health benefits.
'Tapping into Thrive’s knowledge saved us valuable time because we didn’t constantly have to reinvent the wheel’
For enquiries and to find out how a consultancy package could support your organisational aims, call 0118 988 5688 or email us.
All images © David Poole and used with permission