Vicky joined our Green Leadership Programme to support her work on the Everton Community Garden, part of the Friends of Everton Park.
The garden is maintained by a group of volunteers growing fruit, vegetables, plants, and flowers. There is also a woodshop located on-site to help maintain the garden and raised beds, amongst other things planters are made from donated scaffold boards and sold to help with running costs.
Read on to find out more about Vicky’s experience of the Green Leadership Programme:
“I’ve most enjoyed visiting other projects in areas outside my local city and finding out what everyone has been putting into practice around connecting people and nature/green social prescribing. Ideas for developing green projects i.e. wellness walks, visiting a forest to enjoy being in that environment. The forest school at Pennine Oaks sounds amazing, it has brought different community groups to a better understanding of each other and offers activity-based forest therapy sessions, helping people through some difficult times. These shared stories and experiences have been great to hear and think about. The sustainability day was great with so much useful information on setting up and managing a CIC, CIO, or business.
“Meeting with my mentor Ian Jones has been really helpful to focus on objectives and talk over ideas using GROW/SMART models. We visited a fairly new project called Bright Park in the Knotty Ash area of Liverpool. -A local church group has developed the site, which had been neglected for many years, into a usable community green space. The site has some open grass areas, woodland, a wildflower plot, and a lovely forest school area. Work has taken 12 months to get to this stage and be able to engage a local primary school, church, probation services, and people living in the local area. Some plans for the site are to bring back into use an existing basketball court and set up a polytunnel to grow food.
“As a result of the program, I’ve been encouraged to speak to a member of the Public Health team at work, who has been writing a report on green social prescribing (GSP). We had an informal chat about GSP and what Groundwork and Natural England have been doing to network with providers of green social spaces and connect them with communities and individuals. This was a significant topic as Public Health wanted to look at what they and our local authority can do to better connect with providers and how this is going to work. We briefly talked about our thoughts on Croxteth Hall & Country Park with it being managed by Liverpool City Council, and the potential to incorporate/enhance specific GSP activities on offer. “
Green Leadership Programme
The Green Leadership Programme is supported by Natural England and takes place over 5 months between July – November 2023. Participants take part in practical workshop sessions at different Green Community Hubs across the North and are matched with a Groundwork mentor providing ongoing support through the programme. Find out more below
