Care Settings
Care professionals of all disciplines are using gardening to help people enjoy life to the full and to augment and enrich day to day life for the people they care for.
Carers also use gardening to help maintain their own health and well-being.
Are you a care worker, an unpaid carer, a care manager, care referral agent, a health or care professional visiting care settings, or a therapist wanting to offer gardening as part of your practice in cares services?
Via the Trellis Project Network, you can contact others who use gardening to augment care services, both to learn from and to exchange ideas, discuss concerns and perhaps solve problems.
The Trellis network of therapeutic gardening projects is varied and includes groups offering services to:
- People living with life limiting conditions in palliative care facilities
- People living with dementia
- Children with complex disabilities having a spell in respite care
- Individuals living with neurological conditions or head injuries who need care services or supported living arrangements.
- People who are becoming frail and need more care than can be provided at home
- People who are receiving care services at home
- Disabled people, including those with physical or sensory disabilities, and with multiple and complex support needs.
Case Study: Wallace Court, Elderslie
Wallace Court, Elderslie is a Capability Scotland Care Home providing flexible care and support to 20 adult residents with varying physical, learning disability and sensory impairment support needs.
The main aim of Wallace Court is to ensure that each of its 20 customers receive individual quality care and support to meet their own needs and demands as they change and develop.
The rear of the property backs onto woodland with sightings of wildlife commonplace. Handyman John Macdonald had an idea to open a clearing in the wood to allow all at Wallace Court to connect more with this special environment.
A paved area was created along with a heated cabin to allow year-round access, and gardening grew from this.
The staff at Wallace Court are adept at adapting to enable their customers to take part in in many types of activities and a polytunnel was soon on site to facilitate all weather gardening. Growing and tending became a regular slot, and increasingly a daily habit for some. Customers’ health and wellbeing benefitted from the opportunity to spend more active time outdoors engaging in purposeful times. More gardening please!
It was at this point that John and his colleagues felt the need to further develop their own gardening knowledge and skills to ensure the quality of support they could deliver to their customers. Another service within Capability Scotland had previous experience of Trellis and recommended Trellis to John.
Initial contact was with the Trellis website that led to John attending an Adaptive Gardening Techniques training day. Having gotten much from the day’s training and appreciating his own lack of horticultural understanding and confidence, John then contacted Trellis to ask for further guidance.
A site visit was undertaken, which led to a short programme of bespoke workshops being organised to support staff’s training and further development whilst engaging Wallace Court customers in meaningful and fun activity alongside.
Seed sowing, taking cuttings, divisioning and indoor bulb planting are a few of the gardening ‘subjects’ covered on their arranged programme – all the time keeping an eye out for passing four-legged woodland visitors.
A further garden space has been redeveloped by John and one very able and enthusiastic customer of Wallace Court. Plants generated from cuttings and divisioning are on the gardening calendar to be planted in this area by the Wallace Court horticulturalists next summer.
John Sheridan (manager) comments. ‘We had no gardening experience so the support and guidance from Trellis has been invaluable. Our guys have really embraced gardening and are proud of their achievements. Thank you all for your enthusiastic support’.