Case Study: Empowering Individuals Through Supported Volunteering
The Growth Team is just one of five vocational projects we offer to our customers at Surrey Choices. The Growth Team provide our customers with a fantastic opportunity to gain gardening work experience, as well as providing customers with training and support to carry out practical gardening tasks which help preserve the Surrey countryside and public spaces.
Langtons House Project
One of The Growth Team’s current projects is working at Langtons House, Ottershaw in Surrey. The customers attend this project once a week, helping the Doctor who owns the property to clear the four acres of gardens which features an Edwardian sunken garden and an Orchard Garden. The Growth Team have been working at Langtons House for a number of months now, restoring the land by clearing the overgrown gardens, resurfacing pathways with woodchips and more. A greenwood craft unit was set up for the purpose of re-developing areas of the land which has enabled customers to create a Chicken house and more. The team have also helped to create The Orchard Garden which involves maintaining and planting of trees and shrubs for the purpose of food production.
How is this beneficial to our customers?
The Langtons House project has enabled many of the customers to learn a range of rural skills such as the traditional technique of hedgelaying, where wood is harvested from the Langtons House site, trimmed and woven to maintain the habitat. The benefits of this particular technique include customers learning the old fashioned skill and it is a visually pleasing effect. Customers are also trained in using different tools such as strimmers, grass cutters, leaf blowers and more with the guidance from The Growth Team leaders who are fully trained.
Working with the Halow Project
The Growth Team are often visited by the Halow Project, who create opportunities and support young people aged 16-35 with a learning disability to live independent and fulfilled lives, becoming more involved in their local community. The Halow Project work on site with our Growth Team, completing similar jobs and assisting each other to succeed and finish the delegated tasks. We have had customers transition over from the Halow Project to The Growth Team as they get older and we continue to enable them to learn and advance their rural and horticultural skills for future work.
The Surrey Choices Growth Team are joined by The Halow Project at Langtons House, Ottershaw.
Related posts
