Fresh air and farm work boost healing

How do I get my confidence back? How do I get used to working in a team and dealing with people again? How can I do something purposeful to promote my recovery?

The answer to these questions for some sufferers of depression and other mental health difficulties is to be found down on the farm.

Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust’s occupational therapists in Suffolk Coastal have become involved with Friday Street Farm near Aldeburgh, setting up a care farm project for service users.

Potsford Farm at Wickham Market has also recently opened and is the first independent care farm in the coastal area, joining other projects such as Browns Farm at Stowmarket and The Millennium Farm Trust at Bury St Edmunds.

Potsford Farm offers therapeutic work, including care of the animals, conservation, horticulture and work in the horse livery yard, supervised by mental health professionals Kevin Francis and Nathan Nobbs. Service users have the opportunity to work hands on with cattle, goats, pigs and cattle. There are plans to develop and encourage training and education in new skills.

Users can work one to one or in ratios up to one five, depending on their needs. They are normally referred through their local mental health team care coordinator. In Waveney there is a new pilot scheme, ‘farming on prescription,’ for people to be referred to Clinks Farm in Beccles through their GPs. Placements can be self-funded or via the county council’s direct payments scheme. Transport to the farms can be arranged from the nearest bus stop or in some cases, direct payments will fund taxis.

Care farms are a runaway success in the Netherlands where there are 1,000 in operation. Locally Suffolk County Council has a target to commission ten care farms across Norfolk and Suffolk.

Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust also runs groups at two allotments at Felixstowe and Wickham Market and a woodwork and garden project group at Kesgrave. Other service users attend the group at Friday Street Farm near Aldeburgh which runs one afternoon a week, where volunteers help the farmer with horticultural tasks in a real work setting.

Senior occupational therapist Lindsay Maclusky said: “The farm work fulfils many physical health benefits as well as social inclusion, a chance to develop new skills, gain confidence, work as a team in a supportive environment and regain lost skills – a problem which often occurs with service users living with a long term illness.”

Doeke Dobma from Clinks Farm in Beccles who represents the national care farms initiative in Norfolk and Suffolk said: “Care farming offers a pathway toward recovery progression and social inclusion. It combines the care of the land with the care of people reconnecting with nature and their communities.”

For further information please visit www.potsfordfarm.co.uk and www.ncfi.org.uk