Why horticulture should get on board with the benefits of horticulture therapy with Annabelle Padwick

Horticulture Week Podcast

Annabelle Padwick is a professional gardener, well-being practitioner and founder of Life at No.27.

Her first experience of horticulture was growing on her allotment in 2015. She was having psychotherapy at the time and "hoping that I could learn some new skills, but also [hoping] it might help with my mental health at the same time".

She soon quit her marketing career and founded her social enterprise CIC organization, Life at No 27 which supports children and adults from as young as five by combining horticulture therapy and counselling and "trying to give people of all ages access to mental health support that works".

The organisation receives referrals from the NHS, works with school children and in schools, and has therapeutic sites in Northamptonshire and Wales. Annabelle is fundraising to try and open more sites and operate in more schools.

A "child-led sort of approach" allows young people to learn how to grow their own food and "connect with the environment and wildlife". It runs after-school clubs and liaises with schools to help children with "challenging behaviour, (as much as I don't like that word)", anxiety, and poor self-esteem and helps them stay in mainstream education.

Her biggest goal, she says, is to gain sponsorship from a horticultural firm on an ongoing basis and to garner more general support from the sector.

Regards mental health support within horticulture, more could be done Annabelle says: "I'd be interested to know... how many organisations in the industry do have a mental health support policy...there's definitely value in companies investing in this area".

A witness at the 2023 Lords horticulture enquiry Annabelle argued "we need to up our game in terms of horticultural therapy", training, defining what is horticultural therapy and of course, funding.

There is an irony, she says, in "the amount of people that are isolated as horticulturists within the industry that are struggling with their mental health" which "doesn't add up either with how much in the media we're saying gardening can help".

Getting horticulture on to the schools National Curriculum would also "massively help kids mental health and just the knowledge of where food comes from" as well as offering time outside the classroom.

Annabelle set up Growing for Wellbeing Week (3 - 9 June 2024) to help with fundraising and "where we can really push our messaging on a bigger scale, but also offer resources to... colleges, secondary schools, universities, care homes."

With access to mental health services for adults and young people severely stretched, she would like to be able to have more qualified professional councellors and offer a "wraparound service".

The project has a partnership with Prince and Princess of Wales' Royal Foundation which she hopes will help, "if anyone's interested in supporting us then them coming forward."

Annabelle admits frustration with the "definite lack of interest [from the horticulture sector so far], which is frustrating on many levels. But I think there's a lot more for industry to do because it makes sense, doesn't it?"

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