The Growing Together Wellbeing Garden blossoms and grows – Greenfield.
Parents from a local group are building and planting a beautiful Wellbeing Garden in Greenfield for them and the local community to enjoy.
Parents in the group Breathe have come together looking for support and acceptance from others as they handle, on a day-to-day basis, difficulties within their families owing to mental health issues especially in their younger generation.
With an increase in mental health issues in young people, parents are becoming increasingly pressured to manage with their conditions with limited support. A child is discharged from Pennine Care ‘youth services’ at the age of 16. Their brains don’t fully mature until they are in their early 20s.
Parents are increasingly in need of support and somewhere to turn to. The friendly group, Breathe, offers support, a listening ear, and a safe place to express themselves with signposting guidance and stress relief through partaking in crafts and activities with good links with local services and health providers.
Helen Bishop, one of the group’s facilitators says “The group is essential for parents to feel connected. They are not alone.”
The plans are to make a sustainable garden with flowers and plants that will last from one year to the next, full of colour, a variety of smells, textures and inspiration that will boost anyone’s state of mind.
The garden offers the parents an owned space that they can manage and mindfully work at. The project provides time-out for the parents, encouraging teamwork and community cohesion. It is a safe place that they can feel pride in and escape to whenever they feel the need, even if the group isn’t meeting. Gardening skills are learnt, and confidences and self-esteem raised. The project will also be a place for their young people to get involved with in their own peer group and provide a link for conversations in their family.
The health benefits to both physical and mental health are well known. Access to green space has been shown to reduce mental health admissions, resulting in additional savings for the NHS (Wheater et al 2007). It has also been shown by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (Yerrell 2008) that for every £1 invested in green activities, £2.55 would be saved in treating illness related to physical inactivity.
The group meets every first Wednesday of the month at the Satellite Centre in Greenfield. Anyone is welcome as they are to join the group gardening.
Jude Gidney, one of the group’s facilitators, says “We tend to meet on a Sunday at 12pm however it is an ideal space to potter on your own weeding or watering if you have an hour or two and want to be with your own thoughts and nature. Just let us know. “
If you’d like to find out more about Breathe you can find them either on Facebook (2) Breathe – Saddleworth Mental Health Caring Group | Facebook – or contact Jude Gidney on SaddleworthCommunityProjects@gmail.com
Author: Jude Gidney - Editor
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