The Willows Care Farm is one of two Care Farms run by Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and approved by the Social Farms & Gardens Green Care Quality Mark.
They are an alternative provision setting offering a supervised programme of nature-based activities for children and young people. The 1:1, student led approach, encourages students to build on their interests, creativity and natural talents, and learn life skills such as how to problem solve, plan ahead and express themselves. The learning-by-doing approach and focus on the process, not the outcome, means they can build self-esteem by celebrating every success relevant to the student and slowly remove the barriers put up from the feeling of failure.
The students are varied in age and specific needs. Each is an individual and is treated as such. The structure provided is framed by the staff as role models, who encourage, guide and support the student to meet their needs on a daily basis.
The Willows Care Farm is continually evolving, along with its students. As the Care Farm endeavours to meet the needs of their students, they need to regularly update the site, creating a variety of spaces, activities and resources.
Through taking part in the Bath Half Marathon, our staff at The Willows Care Farm aimed to raise funds to update and expand their resources.
They trained throughout the winter, including running through some floods and getting very muddy trainers!
After months of training in all weathers, our staff managed to raise a total of £1,284 for The Willows Care Farm.
Here are their smiling faces after completing their run!
The funds raised went towards providing equipment that will meet the sensory needs of some of their students, enabling them to thrive.