Golden Hill Community Gardens work in partnership with SENDaWelcome to make their gardens, and the activities they run onsite, accessible to people with additional needs and disabilities. In this story, we hear from Lucy Mitchell, Lead Community Project Worker at the Gardens; SENDaWelcome Co-founder Katarina Luce, who advised on making the gardens inclusive, and Kate Little, whose daughter Beatrice attends the afterschool club at Golden Hill.
Find yourself in North Bishopston in early summertime; turn up from the shops and bustle of Gloucester Road, towards the allotments behind Horfield Prison, and you’ll find yourself transported from the city and into the flower-filled, blossom-tree haven of Golden Hill Community Gardens. The sound of the cars disappears, replaced by the birds, and on many days, the chatter of volunteers, or the gleeful bustle of play at the afterschool club, punctuated by the occasional cautionary word from Lucy Mitchell, Lead Community Project worker at the gardens.
The afterschool club at Golden Hill was started initially as a way of raising funds to keep the gardens financially sustainable, and it’s been developed by Lucy and her colleague Lisa into a joyous mix of outdoor fun;
“Lisa and I have created exactly the club that we wished we could have gone to when we were at primary school!” Lucy explains. “There’s den building, nature exploring, veg growing, whittling, making, crafting, tree climbing, raft making, bridge building, flower picking, biscuit baking, fire starting and children generally spending lots of time hooning around the garden playing.”
When SENDaWeclome Co-founder, Katarina, whose two eldest sons Jack and Arli attended the afterschool club, commented how much her younger son Tom, who has additional needs, would also love it there, Lucy realised that, despite having set out to create a space that was truly accessible to all, she had not fully considered how the club could be made inclusive for SEND kids.
“With a site full of hazards, I wasn’t sure how we’d do it at first,” Lucy shares, “but I thought, ‘we’re a community garden, of course we have to put our energy there!’”
The Community Gardens first worked in partnership with SENDaWeclome to get SEND holiday club days up and running so that children with disabilities and their families could share the space. With support from Katrina, Lucy established a SEND-friendly sensory trail and they ran interviews together, to find support workers who had the right balance of training and experience to support SEND children. Lucy applied for funding from the Council’s Neighbourhood Fund; the bid was successful and they now run 5-6 of these inclusive days a year.
Putting on SEND-focused days has changed the approach to other social events at the gardens too, Lucy shares: “We now have a trained support worker to hold a quiet space for those who might need it at our Bonfire Night celebrations or for the Summer and May Fairs.”
Katarina agrees; “The changes for the SEND days have influenced all of the infrastructure at the gardens. It has made a difference to people without disabilities too, for people with mental health issues and all sorts of accessibility needs.”
It was through one of these SEND holiday club days that Kate Little’s daughter Bea discovered the Community Gardens. Kate saw how much Bea enjoyed being in the space, and with the gardens made accessible, she put her name on the waiting list for the mainstream afterschool club:
“I thought it would be something that Bea would really enjoy. When she was going through those angsty teenage years, just getting outside; physically being out of the building and into a wide, open green space made a world of difference – it’s a total sensory relax.”
Bea has now been attending the afterschool club since she was in Year 5. Now in Year 11, at SEND specialist school, KingsWeston, she still loves her Thursday afternoons here with Lucy and the team.
“Bea loves being outside,” Kate says. “She loves the other children, she loves the things that they do; making pizza in the oven, creating things together outdoors. She’s really sociable and just likes to be part of things, out in the world.”
The Golden Hill Community Gardens are special for both Bea and Kate, not just as access to the wild green space, but also because of the relationships Bea has formed there. Before moving to KingsWeston school and starting the Community Hill afterschool club, Bea used to attend the afterschool club run by her local mainstream school.
“Bea loved it because she was with other kids in the community and it was local to us. I wanted her to carry on with some kind of mainstream activities nearby and Golden Hill has filled that gap and helped Bea keep her local connections.
Tom’s brother, Jack, now at Secondary School, comes back to the gardens to volunteer at the afterschool club. He reflects that the positive relationships Bea and Tom have formed in the community works both ways.
“I see how much Tom and Bea get out of coming to the gardens, but everyone else there gains a lot too – they get to see how our community is made of kids who are not all the same. I think that gives everyone permission to be themselves.”
Kate agrees, “Bea makes people smile when she’s out and about, her zest for life is infectious. She is a great ambassador for people with learning disabilities being out in the community, as she clearly gets so much out of it. Visibility is important, the more we see people like Beatrice out and about the more normalised it will become.”
—
Find out more about Golden Hill Community Garden events and activities.
SENDaWelcome are committed to raising awareness of the issues society creates for people with learning disabilities so that everyone can work together to make things better. We do this by working in partnership with local organisations, hosting awareness events, and storytelling. Find out more about how we do this https://www.sendawelcome.co.uk/visibility-and-awareness/
Read our latest article for Context magazine on Ableism and disablism
no replies