Empowering young people through the healing
power of gardening
Growing Roots Social and Therapeutic Horticulture
Growing Roots is a small, non-profit Community Interest Company.
Since 2013, we’ve supported vulnerable children, young people, and families in Mendip and Sedgemoor through therapeutic gardening projects. Of our five directors, two have qualifications in Social and Therapeutic Horticulture from Thrive.
You can read about our team and their wealth of experience here; all of whom have enhanced DBS Certificates and Safeguarding training.
Social and Therapeutic Horticultural is highly adaptable. We have worked with children and young people from age 5 to 19, some have social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, some have profound and multiple learning difficulties. These are the benefits we witness:
Learn New Skills
Expect to learn gardening, social skills, making use of resources and more.
Enjoy Social Interactions
We facilitate interactions with peer groups and teachers and with elders through intergenerational projects.
Connect to the Natural World
Spending time working outside you’ll connect more to nature and your local environment.
Increase Self Confidence
You may notice an increase in self confidence and self esteem as well as greater physical and emotional wellbeing.
Adapting What We Do
At Growing Roots, we create fun, immersive, and sensory-rich experiences. Our projects help children connect with nature through planting, growing and harvesting. This supports them to develop new skills, build confidence, and experience the benefits of being outdoors. We adapt the projects based upon:
Environments:
indoor table-top activities, outdoor container-growing, outdoor allotment space.
Approaches:
each activity can be broken down into manageable tasks, reverse-chaining for those with sequencing difficulties
Resources:
fast-germinating vegetables and flowers, reliable growing plants, plants that have scents and different textures and tastes to stimulate the senses, adapted tools
Activities:
vegetable, herb and flower growing, flower arranging, creating, using willow, watching clouds, listening to bird song, enjoying scents, creating gardens, basic garden design
Since 2013 we have worked in schools and in community spaces as well as working with young people to create gardens in spaces for older people. Our intergenerational project brings young and older people together through gardening activities, fostering connection and shared experiences.
Our current projects are funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and take place in gardens in Wells where we work with students from a local secondary school and young people not in education, employment or training.
Thanks To Our Sponsors
The work we do is generously supported by funding; our funders have included the following organisations. We would also like to thank The Bishops Palace for providing access to their beautiful garden.
