If you’re feeling depressed, anxious or finding everyday life difficult, then we may be able to help with free effective support for your mental health at our sites at Low Sizergh near Kendal, at Tebay Services or West Cumbria.
If you feel ready to work on your mental health by setting a goal for your recovery and spending time at Growing Well working towards that goal, you can sign up today.
Lots of people are referred to Growing Well by their doctor or by the Community Mental Health Team but you can apply to join yourself (sometimes called ‘self-referring’).
In as little as two weeks from the getting in touch, you can be starting with us here on site, volunteering on our organic vegetable farm at Low Sizergh Farm, our kitchen garden at Tebay Services on the M6, or at our new site in West Cumbria, opening in Spring 2024.
You don’t need a formal mental health diagnosis. If you think you are experiencing mental ill health then we believe that you are the best judge of this. A hot, healthy lunch will be provided for you, free of charge, and your travel expenses can be reimbursed. We also provide free minibus transport on different days to both sites, from various locations in Cumbria and North Lancashire.
The usual length of stay with us is between 6 months and 1 year and we support you in your next steps.
Get help or give help?
If you do not need mental health support but want to help Growing Well by giving your time or skills as a Support Volunteer or Community Volunteer click here. Our support is free. We rely entirely upon charitable donations and grant funders to enable us to do our work, alongside commercial income from our produce. If you’d like to support us financially, click here
What to expect
You will always come to Growing Well on the same day each week and get to know and work alongside a group of other people, supported by our staff. When you are here, a staff member will lead the activity you have chosen to participate in. They will work with you to understand your goals for recovery and ensure that you feel safe and included at all times.
Our sites are ‘real-world’ commercial businesses: Low Sizergh is a working farm, where you can get involved with growing fruit and vegetables for our 100 local veg box customers. At Tebay Services our new kitchen garden supplies salad and other vegetables commercially to the services farm shops and kitchens just a few hundred metres away.
At all our sites you will get to learn about what we grow and how we grow it, and where we sell our produce. And, of course, you will get to have a go at doing these things yourself.
How to join
You will always come to Growing Well on the same day each week and get to know and work alongside a group of other people who are also experiencing mental ill health.
A hot, healthy lunch will be provided for you free of charge on the days you attend. Your travel expenses to us can be reimbursed and we are also able to provide minibus transport to our sites on certain days each week with pick-up points in nearby towns and villages.
No one day at Growing Well is the same and there are lots of new activities to get involved in, people to work with, and skills to learn.
Growing
Volunteers are supported to work in group activities, growing, picking and packing our vegetables. At Low Sizergh, we have a weekly veg box scheme with more than 100 local customers.
At Tebay, you will be growing vegetables and salad sold directly into the kitchens at Tebay Services and in their farm shops.
There is always work to be done, and there’s nothing like working in a commercial growing enterprise to maintain a sense of moving forward.
Goal setting
Everyone who comes to Growing Well is supported to set a main goal for their recovery. Our therapeutic staff will support you to manage and monitor your individual progress on your own journey through Growing Well.
Every six weeks, you will have the opportunity to look back and see how you are getting on, in a supportive 1:1 chat. Here, you can make plans and set goals for the next six weeks, and we can make sure that we are doing our best to support your recovery.
Horticultural Skills
You will learn a host of practical and vocational skills during your time at Growing Well – and by the time you leave you should have had the chance to cover most or all of them – and have the satisfaction of being able to show new volunteers how things are done.
Horticultural skills are all recorded so you will have a record of achievement and transferable skills which can help toward moving forward into employment.
Peer support
A key part of coming to Growing Well is the opportunity for you to work alongside other volunteers and to support each other. Because nobody understands it better than someone else experiencing similar feelings.
Extra Support
We can also connect you with other trusted local organisations that we work with, who could help you with some of your challenges or support needs while you are at Growing Well. All of your information is held confidentially, and we do not share it with anyone, unless you want us to or if we are concerned about your safety.
Moving on
When you move on from Growing Well, which could be any time between 6 weeks and one year, you will have developed new skills, made new friends, built or rebuilt your confidence, and had the chance to practice everything you have learned in our safe and supportive environment.