Higher Ground Allendale

A Garden Building Bridges to Employment

We provide purposeful and productive work and volunteering experience in a market garden environment, helping people overcome their barriers to employment.

We do this by supporting people to build on their personal wellbeing and resilience. Our gardeners learn new skills through working as part of a team, supported by an RHS qualified gardener and a qualified careers advisor. Employment experience includes:

• Apprenticeships to those with a physical or mental health condition, or disability through the Access to Work scheme
• Providing opportunities to gain new skills / skills exchange
• Providing CV and employability advice, including employment references
• Volunteer placements for young people enrolled on the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme or looking for work experience
• Providing outdoor volunteer opportunities for adults of all abilities

We offer a safe, calm and welcoming environment for our gardeners to benefit from outdoor activity and peer support with supervision. Our volunteers, including referrals, work together to maintain the garden and help grow vegetables that are sold to the community in a box scheme. All money raised from the sale of produce goes back into running of the project.

We have a vegetable garden, a public space and a wildflower nursery that, with the help of our volunteers, propagates and sells native wildflowers to be planted by local people in their gardens and verges. We also engage with the community to run craft and skills workshops, an after-school club, seasonal events and weekly drop-in sessions to tackle social isolation and raise money for our core costs.

Please contact us to find out more about getting involved.

Mental health support

Working with the land and engaging with the natural environment has many benefits to mental and physical health. If you feel that joining us would help you or someone you know, please get in touch or drop by to have a look round.

If you register as part of Higher Ground Allendale, you will be part of the small and friendly team that looks after our produce, as well as the wider ornamental and community garden.

To join the project, you will need to have spoken to a healthcare professional about your mental health who may refer or signpost you to the service and be your mental health referee. Your membership will include:

• Three-hour sessions with a qualified horticulturist (currently on Fridays or Saturdays) in the project garden and use of equipment
• Use of the building, the common room and its facilities, and refreshments during the course of the session
• 1-1 time with a careers counsellor
• Each registered individual will have the opportunity to complete personal development goals, and build confidence and self-esteem through internal workshops

What we require is that you:

• Provide us with a referee, This might be your GP or a Care Co-ordinator
• Commit to being part of a team in a productive environment
• Work safely and responsibly, and treat all other site users with respect

We also provide a weekly drop-in service for coffee and a chat on Thursdays 10am-12pm. Everyone is welcome.

Veg Boxes