Gardening and nature are a lifelong love for mature learner Rebecca who is in her second year of Thrive’s Social and Therapeutic Horticulture (STH) Diploma and a recipient of The John Weightman bursary. Through the bursary and diploma Rebecca is retraining to become an STH practitioner in pursuit of her dream to deliver community gardens across the UK.
As a private gardener with an interest in community and ecology, Rebecca creates engaging community wildlife and organic gardens and runs workshops. Her projects include transforming an unused old churchyard into a community space, creating native pollinator flower borders at the local leisure centre and setting up an award-winning bee trail and app for the city of Salisbury. She also worked at Arundells House located within Salisbury’s Cathedral Close, with volunteer veterans from a local veterans charity to support their mental health.
“Working with the community, I know how powerful plants and nature can be for people especially those living with mental ill health challenges and those who are isolated or lonely. I’ve learned how to engage people and manage the pace of work in terms of how much someone might be able to take on mentally, physically and emotionally. I’m particularly interested in Veterans mental health, with gentle handling the veterans I have worked with respond well to getting outside and working with plants using a planned production line method with clear instructions. They also benefit from having a place where they belong.”
As Rebecca’s community garden work involves STH she wanted to train to formally and is enjoying the Diploma course.
“The course is brilliant! I am loving the wide scope of things to learn about, from horticulture skills to human development. My key take-away so far is structure and really well-considered, person-centred planning of activities for a range of clients. The human and social element of STH really interests me and that's why I love community gardening. I enjoy understanding people's sensitivities and how to integrate someone into a garden mindset.”
“STH training with Thrive is bringing theory and structure to my practice, formalising the learning and putting a framework around session plans and assessments. For example, with the veterans a part of the process was learning to sit happily in the garden and enjoy the space without a need to achieve a goal, and I now know this is attention restoration theory. The course is also helping me to better execute my garden designs on paper and present key information to stakeholders in meetings such as the reasoning behind certain aspects, consideration of people’s needs and spotting potential design flaws.”
Rebecca has some physical injuries and health issues which caused her private gardening work to diminish. She couldn’t afford to retrain and The John Weightman bursary is giving her the opportunity to further her career in community gardening and use her STH knowledge to add even more facilities for a wider audience and user base.
“I applied for the bursary to help fund the course which I couldn’t afford otherwise. I’m a gardener by trade, but because I've had an injury, I need a less physically demanding role. The STH Diploma is giving me the opportunity to make a career change and revise my work taking on more of a garden design and people approach. As an STH practitioner I will be able to expand beyond my network and location. My dream is to deliver community gardens all over the country.”