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MISSION STATEMENT - “To share the joy of practical horticulture with people of all ages, especially those who have any form of disability or learning difficulty, helping them to gain self-confidence and providing them with new and enjoyable life skills”. 
The Therapy Garden is a well established, registered Charity in Normandy, near Guildford, Surrey. It is administered by a group of trustees who meet monthly to monitor and evaluate the work of the Charity and to receive financial and management reports. We are based on the 32 acre ‘Manor Fruit Farm’ site, which is at the heart of the village, and where the main leisure facilities for the local community are sited, including the village hall, the archery and bowls clubs, the children’s playground and the village green. We have 115 years of the lease remaining. The Centre works closely with Guildford College and has formal partnerships with Surrey Compact, Guildford Borough Council and Normandy Parish Council. We are also affiliated to the Thrive National Association for Horticultural Therapy, Surrey Community Action and the RHS Wisley.. Through the medium of gardening and horticulture we run courses for special needs students aged 14 to 18, from a number of local Special Schools in Surrey and Hampshire for two days a week, every week of the school year. We call these groups the “Green School”. The aim is to give the students a basic grounding in horticulture and to enable them to take part in the City & Guilds vocational course called "Skills for Working Life - Horticulture". We also help adults with mental health problems, learning difficulties and physical disabilities. We call them our ‘clients’. Our aim is to help our service users improve psychologically, physically and socially, while at the same time helping them gain self-confidence and also providing them with new and enjoyable life-skills. This horticultural therapy has provided some of them with the opportunity to enter into further education, training and potential employment.
Around 570 people benefit from our activities each year. This includes 20 adults with mental health problems, learning difficulties and physical disabilities; 24 students with special needs; 60 children from local schools; 60 participants on courses we run; 30 volunteers who assist in various ways; 380 members of the local community who visit or benefit from the produce we sell. The adults we work with are referred to us by local Social Care and Community Mental Health teams, who fund their places. The following gives an indication of the types of issues that our clients suffer from: depression; bipolar disorder; schizoaffective disorder; profound deafness; dumbness; learning difficulties; cerebral palsy; communication difficulties; short term memory loss; Huntington’s disease; poor socialisation skills due to a head injury; chronic back pain after being run over by a lorry; paranoia and anxiety; aspergers. With these clients we use horticulture as a therapy for them, where taking part in horticultural or gardening activities can allow them to get great psychological, physical and social benefits, improving the quality of their life tremendously. Tasks can be selected to suit each individual’s abilities and needs, and any impairment or disability can be taken into account, so that they do things where they can achieve success, be it sowing seeds, potting on, mowing the grass, pruning the shrubs, tending the herb garden, planting bulbs or designing a part of the garden, for example. We also find that for someone like our client with Huntington’s disease, the horticultural therapy has helped by allowing him to develop strategies to assist with managing his poor co-ordination and balance. Another great advantage is that we find our clients social skills improve, as well as their communication skills. For some this is as important for them as the horticultural therapy, as socialisation seems to relieve the stigma of mental illness and helps restore their confidence and builds self-esteem. Some of clients have also developed the self-confidence to study for the basic skills qualification in horticulture and have been especially successful. We typically support up to 12 adult clients each week. Some continue working at the Centre on a permanent basis, while others stay for a while until they feel they have benefited and then leave to undertake different activities. For example, one of our adult clients with schizophrenia felt sufficiently recovered and has recently left to start part-time work. Another with learning difficulties has gained sufficient confidence to move on to other activities and make new contacts, something he has not felt able to do before.
Recently the Normandy branch of the British Legion has asked if the Therapy Garden can help maintain the border around the village war memorial. This is an ideal opportunity for one of our clients to take on this responsibility, which will help their self-confidence and teach them new skills. We have also been fortunate that a local nursery has been generous enough to donate the plants. We hope to plant the borders with seasonal plants throughout the year, and to make the memorial look especially colourful for the annual Remembrance Day parade. None of what has been mentioned would be able to happen without the help of the 30 volunteers, some of whom work with the adults and the ‘Green School’ students, while others assist with fundraising events, help in the garden, deliver post, make refreshments at functions or assist the charity generally. We value tremendously their excellent work, as without them it would not be possible to assist so many vulnerable people. We maintain close links with the local volunteer organisations and many of our volunteers have been recruited from this source, although some have been with us since the Charity began. Others have offered their services through reading about the Charity in the parish magazine or local newspaper. One of our volunteers is a former mental health client who has recovered sufficiently to now offer his support to others.
Others beneficiaries include children from a school for severely disabled children and pupils from the local village primary school, who visit each year. We also run ‘taster’ courses for children from mainstream secondary schools to give them an insight into horticulture as a career. There are also visitors from other groups and organisations who visit at their request, such as the Allotment groups, Guildford Lions Club, church groups and garden clubs. We also hold courses for groups from, for instance, Age Concern, the Chinese Association of Woking and the Ghurkhas, and since 1999 have organised an annual “Village Gardens Open Day” which attracts over 200 people. The local community is able to visit the garden during opening hours, either to walk around and enjoy or to assist with planting and watering, for instance, and around 20 people use our green waste composting facility. Since 1999 we have organised an annual “Village Garden Open Day”, which starts and finishes at the Therapy Garden. Up to 14 gardens are open on the day and over 200 people visit the Centre and the other gardens. The Charity has won four ‘Gold’ awards in the prestigious Guildford in Bloom competition for the best community garden; last year it won a ‘Silver Gilt’ award for the best vegetable garden and this year we have been awarded a ‘Gold’ award for the best vegetable garden in the borough. We have twice been awarded the Mayor’s award for disability access. Placing clients If any Social Care Manager or Mental Health Team Coordinator wishes to visit the Therapy Garden with a view to placing a client, or wishes to find out more information, please contact the Centre Manager, Alan Burchett, on 01483 813846 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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