1 in 6 people in the UK face mental health challenges*, up 18% from pre-pandemic levels**. Alongside our brilliant partner, Ecowild, we have been working to support those experiencing mental ill health for years. The next phase of this work, Growing Wellbeing: Restoring People and Place kicks off this month and runs until March 2023.
With big thanks to the West of England Combined Authority and Quartet Community Foundation for funding the programme, we are bringing together the Farm’s offers under one banner and reaching further out into our communities than ever before. Longstanding partner EcoWild have long supported our work in this field, with their knowledge and experience of supporting vulnerable adults through connecting with the Farm. We now bring their Lakeside Wellbeing course together with our Grow and Make and Wild Steps courses to present a year-round programme with structured progression routes both on and off the Farm.
Over the next six months we will work with around 50 people to support their journey towards mental good health. Community is key to everything we do here at The Community Farm. We aim to grow community as much as food. Here communities are the webs of life that are connected with the farm. From the microbes in our soil to the birds in the hedges to our members and the people caring for our land, our habitats and growing our crops, to those buying, packing and delivering our boxes.
It is now well documented that connection with ‘green’ and ‘blue’ spaces (as they get called in academia) alongside creative community connections have a beneficial effect on mental good health, and we are delighted that we can now expand our offer of connection with our beautiful corner of Chew Valley to more people.
We have also responded to feedback from our participants over the last few years and now offer stand-alone Wild Days and Grow Days, both as taster sessions for those who are unsure whether a course is for them, and as top-up days for people who have finished a course but still want to connect with the Farm. Other routes for progression could be helping us to grow our food crops, applying for one of our jobs, or support with connecting with a wide range of other providers. Many people who start with a course or Community Farmer Day here go on to regularly volunteer or get paid jobs, including Managing Director Kim Brooks:
“My very first day at The Farm was the infamous squash harvest Community Famer Day in 2015. It helped crystallize my want to move from finance to food and farming. Wind forward a year, and by Autumn 2016 I had started a Masters in Sustainable Agriculture. The part-time hours allowed me to volunteer at The Farm during the week, and luckily, as my masters came to an end, The Farm needed a new finance person. I guess the rest is history!”
For more information on Growing Wellbeing click here.
Dr. Daisy Sutcliffe,
Communities & Partnerships Manager
*https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06988/
