Growing Well is a farm-based Mental Health charity near Kendal. We provide a safe supportive working environment to nurture mental health recovery. We work with people on a weekly basis, sometime over years, to help rebuild a sense of purpose, to engage in meaningful and fulfilling activity and to build hope for the future.
When people leave us, they have learnt the skills to manage their mental health, reduce their reliance on health services, but know how to access help if they need it. For many people, recovery is a lifelong journey.
Our approach
To achieve our vision, we focus on three key objectives.
1. To develop people’s emotional resilience
Emotional resilience is about dealing well with life’s challenges, stressful situations and crises, and maintaining a sense of moving forward.
2. To develop people’s life skills
Life skills increase empathy with others and the ability to express individual needs. Solving problems and making good decisions under pressure (combined with employability skills) supports independence.
3. To support people to be healthier and more active
There is a strong correlation between poor mental health and poor physical health. One may be caused by the other and create a downward spiral.
Mental health and organic growing
Our charitable enterprise combines mental health recovery work with the operation of an organic growing company. Over the past 15 years we have been recognised as a leader in the field of Care Farming.
We have 1250 square metres of indoor growing space, 3 yurts and other social spaces of over a 100 square metres. We grow around 15 tonnes of organic vegetables on-site each year, which are sold through a Crop Share (Vegetable Bag) scheme and via local retail and wholesale partners.
We hold the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s Enabling Environments quality mark, which is given to organisations that demonstrate they are achieving an outstanding level of best practice in creating and sustaining a positive and effective social environment.
We are passionate and enthusiastic about creating an environment which is welcoming and accessible. We operate as flexibly as possible to ensure that everyone involved with Growing Well is treated equally and that their diversity is welcomed.
We are Soil Association certified, CEVAS Accredited (Countryside Educational Visits Accreditation Scheme ) and as a City and Guilds Centre. We are regularly audited by Cumbria County Council’s Adult Social Care team as well as by the FE college’s that we work in partnership with.