Get into gardening
Building a better future through horticulture
The get into gardening project is a Fulham Palace Trust project aimed at engaging young people who face a range of barriers to accessing the garden at Fulham Palace. It provides them with experience of careers in horticulture and opportunities to get out and enjoy the natural world around them. The project is split into several aspects, with one area focused on placements and paid traineeship roles working with partners such as the youth justice service. Other aspects of the project include on-site visits from local schools, as well as our gardeners visiting the schools themselves.
Aims of the project
The project has four key aims:
- To expand the garden team’s work with children and young people
- To use Fulham Palace’s garden and the skills of the garden team to engage new education audiences
- To create a unique garden education offer locally where there is currently little similar provision
- To particularly support children and young people who have been identified as needing extra support and who could benefit from an enriched educational offer
Project background
Fulham Palace Trust and one of our funders saw a need within the local community and the Trust commissioned a feasibility study between November 2019 and January 2020. We spoke to ten locally based education providers, spanning primary schools, schools for children with special educational needs and providers of alternative provision to mainstream education.
Alongside consultation meetings with the education providers, a review of relevant sector best practice in relation to garden education programmes took place. Regular meetings throughout the research period also took place with the Fulham Palace staff team to discuss ideas as they developed.
Following the feasibility work the Trust was able to secure funding to start the project in September 2021.
I like that everyone here is a family where you can talk to everyone. It’s like a community. I like how it’s a nice environment as well.
Matin, Fulham Palace trainee
Project success
Over the course of the project so far (September 2021 to August 2024), we have engaged 333 unique learners and facilitated 316 hands-on gardening sessions.
We worked with 14 partner organisations, with the most intensive work with the following:
- Burlington House School, Fulham
- Barber Francis Barber Pupil Referral Unit (PRU), Wandsworth
- Granard Primary School, Wandsworth
- London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Youth Justice Service
An external evaluation of the project in 2024 demonstrated the benefits to young people of spending time within nature, with the participants gaining a lot from the therapeutic and mindfulness aspects of gardening. The project also increased participants’ knowledge and respect for nature and the environment, whether they took part in a facilitated workshop or worked alongside garden volunteers.
The opportunity to work alongside the garden team, the garden volunteers and the apprentices was noted by multiple partners as a positive side effect. Particularly the multi-generational working aspect was picked up as having a beneficial impact on the trainees and other young people.
I also believe that it has enhanced their trust and belief in the professionals that work with them…working alongside somebody for two hours, sharing stories…definitely deepens the trust into the people that you work with. So that goes both ways for the young person as well as us, and I’m sure the gardeners as well
Tereza, Youth Justice Service
The participants have shown an increased sense of ownership in Fulham Palace, with young people bringing their family back to the gardens to show them around, demonstrating pride in their work at Fulham Palace.
Future aims
We will be continuing the project over the next two years, thanks to funding secured from two funders (see below).
The success of the traineeship programme, and the work with the Youth Restorative Justice Service is evident and our partners are keen to continue the activities and their partnerships with the Palace. Careers, employability skills and work experience are all key areas that the partners would like to explore and feel that Fulham Palace would be a good site and organisation to work with.
Funding
Fulham Palace has two streams of funding to support the get into gardening project. Work with schools will be facilitated through a schools’ partnership and outdoor learning project funded by John Lyon’s Charity.
The work with the Hammersmith and Fulham Youth Justice Service and Frances Barber pupil referral unit in Wandsworth will be funded until September 2024 by the Lyon Family Charitable Trust. The funding from the Lyon Family Charitable Trust will support up to four paid traineeships at any one time, plus the weekly visit by the senior gardener to Frances Barber PRU.
