A BEECH HILL-based charity has celebrated its first group of students achievements last week at a special ceremony.
Thrive, which uses gardening to help people’s health, has been helping 10 people work towards their Diploma in Social and Therapeutic Horticulture (STH), which enables them to practise the discipline in any setting, helping people’s physical and mental health through plants and gardening.
Among the recipients was Katie Andrews from Streatley, who won the John Weightman Prize for Excellence.
“I loved studying for the diploma,” she said.
“I wanted a complete career change, but didn’t have any experience in STH. This course has taught me so much and I now have a job at a therapeutic garden, it’s been such an exciting year and I love what I do.”
Horticultural researcher and retired professor at Loughborough University, Dr Joe Sempik was a guest at the presentation and said the graduating students were among the highest qualified people in the UK to practice STH.
“Thrive has always produced first-class training and is recognised as having a gold standard that everyone looks up to and recognises,” he said.
“This is a huge achievement, not just for the students graduating but for the horticultural sector.”
The view was echoed by Damien Newman, the manager of Thrive’s Education and Training.
He led the ceremony – and the teaching, wishing the students well in their journey and praised the generosity of the family of John Weightman, who was a keen gardener: “He was an incredible man whose family has generously supported three bursary places for diploma students. Support, financial or otherwise is important and I am sure your journey will continue to be supported by those working in horticultural therapy and your family and friends.”
John Weightman’s daughter, Eleanor and husband David attended the event and met with students and training staff.
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Two Thrive ambassadors; client gardener, Carly Field and volunteer of five years, Hilary Manisty presented the students with mementoes, wooden boxes with inspirational phrases and ceramic leaves that had been made and painted by client gardeners at Beech Hill.
Carly said she was thrilled to help with the award ceremony: “It was really exciting, I enjoyed handing the students the leaves we’d made. They told me they were very special and they would always treasure them.”
Thrive’s new diploma accreditation is provided by the Open College Network and the course runs over two years with a blend of self-guided learning, lectures, workshops, tutorials and assessed coursework.
For more details, log on to: www.thrive.org.uk/get-training
