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Our Impact & Quality Assurance
We don't have a single headline number to share yet — but everyone who comes to the gardens works from their own concise and simple Personal Plan, checking in regularly on the goals that matter to them, whether that's confidence, routine, learning or simply getting out of the house. We're working on bringing that together into a clearer picture of our impact as a whole.
The Growing Space is a member of Social Farms & Gardens - the organisation that represents hundreds of UK community gardening and farming organisations and groups. As such we are working towards their quality assurance scheme - The Green Care Quality Mark. We hope to receive accreditation from them soon - but it's a lengthy process.
We're also looking forward to embracing the Association of Social & Therapeutic Horticulture Practitioner's competencies and code of ethics for STH which are currently being developed by THRIVE and TRELLIS.
Success Story 1
Julian came to The Growing Space through a Balsam Centre support worker, after a referral from his doctor. “Now it's a bit more about the socialising,” he says. “It just happens to involve gardening.”
Julian is also aiming to build his work skills and prefers smaller groups within the bigger ones. It isn't another course, and nothing about it feels like a classroom — nothing to prepare for, nothing to explain. Potting on seedlings and growing food for the local food bank gave him a reason to turn up; he's learned plenty since, he says, just not the way a classroom ever teaches it. The friendships are what's kept him coming.
Success Story 2
Sharon comes to The Growing Space for the day on Tuesdays to build her confidence and independence, doing hands-on jobs — potting, labelling, watering — alongside a small group of friends she's built up over more than a year of coming.
Her mum Liz comes separately, on another day. “She can't wait to go,” Liz says. “This is her friends, big time.” It's become something of Liz's own time too.
A personal budget can fund sessions like these, and becomes an investment in independence
Success Story 3
“There's never any pressure on you,” Sandra says. “Which is lovely.” Nobody asks her why she's there, and nobody expects her to explain if she doesn't want to.
She describes activities in the gardens as those she can drop in and out of as her mental health varies, and The Growing Space has always welcomed her back, on and off, for years — “if I stay at home, my head thinks too much” — . “We're just a patch of good friends,” she says. “We don't have no labels here, it's lovely to wake up in the morning and know I'm going to do that today."
Success Story 4
Michelle started volunteering at The Growing Space wanting “to put something back into the community, but doing something I enjoy — a good combination.” She now helps care for the gardens around the Balsam Centre, including the pond garden.
“The thing about gardening is, you're not looking back, you're looking forward,” she says. Looking through before-and-after photos of the garden she's helped build, she says simply: “it actually restores your faith in yourself.”
