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We can’t imagine living without visiting nature and gardening. It makes us feel good. The need to connect with nature is deep inside everyone. It’s in our DNA, because we evolved for most of human history in a green world. The idea of Breathing Spaces germinated when we thought about how people get cut off from this great healer, Nature.
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The beginning
We went to talk to older people in care homes and many said they used to love gardening but, of course, they had stopped years ago when it became too difficult. But they talked about their favourite plants, fond memories of childhood and parents they helped in the garden. We visited again with vases of seasonal flowers to prompt more reminiscence and sensory delight. Then we got out the compost and seeds. People who said they couldn't possibly garden now found that, with a little help, they could. And their sense of achievement was huge. We started to meet people with dementia. Same story. We did some research and found lots of evidence that gardening in small groups can help to prevent dementia and help people to live well with dementia. In fact, it can help all sorts of people. So we made Breathing Spaces, the Community Interest Company, and two breathing spaces, our gardens in the community. |
Vision
We want to live in a town where every green space lures you in and lifts the soul, especially around places where people who are struggling with life are trying to heal. We want every doctor to be prescribing regular doses of green therapy, especially for people facing mental health challenges, dementia or social isolation. We are passionate about creating the most healing and empowering experiences we can to enable other people to live well. And we want friends, families and work colleagues to invite and help each other to get out into nature or a garden as often as possible, so that everyone lives with the pleasure and self-esteem of having three vital things: less stress purpose connection |
Where we are now
It's our vision and values so we are hands-on, fully present, welcoming clients, carers, volunteers and visitors into our gardens. We know how to design and build beautiful and effective therapeutic gardens – more so because we have learnt from our clients what works. We have our own creative style and environmentally conscious approach. We are trained and experienced in Social and Therapeutic Horticulture - we assess the interests, abilities and needs of each client, co-create experiences with them, and regularly review what difference it is making. And we are a Community Interest Company (CIC), which means that we have a social purpose, we re-invest any surpluses into helping more people, and we are accountable about our social impact to the CIC Regulator. In 2019 we started to grow and sell flowers so that we can be sure that Breathing Spaces continues to help people in the future through the income we generate.
And then the 2020 Corona virus pandemic arrived. Almost overnight we were unable to do our usual activities and almost all of our income-generating work stopped. We realised that our business model was not very resilient and that it would have to change. Since then we have slowly found ways to adapt. We can't do the same kind of therapeutic work with some of our client groups as before, but we feel it is vitally important to find different ways to facilitate people spending time in nature and gardens, either actively or passively tapping into the healing power of working or being with plants. So that's what we are going to do.
And then the 2020 Corona virus pandemic arrived. Almost overnight we were unable to do our usual activities and almost all of our income-generating work stopped. We realised that our business model was not very resilient and that it would have to change. Since then we have slowly found ways to adapt. We can't do the same kind of therapeutic work with some of our client groups as before, but we feel it is vitally important to find different ways to facilitate people spending time in nature and gardens, either actively or passively tapping into the healing power of working or being with plants. So that's what we are going to do.
Founding directors
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Claire Hunt
I was a film-maker for many years until I started to feel the need for something more earthy. I gave up my stressful job and got my Diploma in Permaculture Design, a process for designing sustainable lifestyles, habitats and communities. I worked for four years in Worthing Council's Community Wellbeing team and completed an Award in Social and Therapeutic Horticulture, validated by Thrive and Coventry University. As well as yoga and mindfulness, I now have a forest garden, a rain garden, an allotment and house plants for my own therapy. I'm interested in seasonal cooking, fermenting and natural dyeing. And I still love films. |
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Lisa Leach
After studying Horticulture and Garden Design I ran a gardening business for many years and volunteered at a community allotment. I developed a deep love and passion for gardening and became aware of the many health benefits it offers. Slightly disillusioned by mainstream garden design I searched for something more meaningful and sustainable - a Permaculture Design course ticked that box perfectly. I also trained to become a Horticultural Therapist with Thrive. When not in the garden I am usually to be found in the kitchen exploring my other passion for good food, out walking or at the cinema. |
A growing team
Kay Gladwin
We met Kay at the zero-waste shop Larder, where she worked. She began volunteering with us, including watering the Sid garden at weekends. We are delighted that in 2020 she wanted to become a Director and we really love all the creative ideas she has and her thoughtful responses to the natural world. We are looking forward to Kay and Vanessa running some of our nature appreciation programmes in the near future. |
Vanessa Gomez
Since my early teens protesting against bullfighting and supporting Greenpeace, I’ve always been passionate about nature and cared for the environment. I joined Breathing Spaces in December 2018 and it has become as much therapy for me as for the clients. I’m a social animal who enjoys eating out, meeting friends and walking my dog; however, on rainy days you’ll only find me indoors watching movies, reading or doing some crafts. The picture shows some of the veggies I grew at home last year! |
Ginny Hewlett
Our first Non-Executive Director from 2017-20, Ginny was a founder member of our community allotment, along with her husband Ian, who was a professional gardener. We really appreciated all their input and we wish them both well. |
Our Key Partners
We are also delighted to work with other local groups including:
Sharing Lives, Independent Lives, Worthing Mental Health Awareness, Green Tides, The Life Centre, Safe in Sussex, GoodGym Worthing, Santander, Transition Town Worthing, Sompting Community in the Countryside, Worthing Wildflower Trail, We Are FoodPioneers.
Sharing Lives, Independent Lives, Worthing Mental Health Awareness, Green Tides, The Life Centre, Safe in Sussex, GoodGym Worthing, Santander, Transition Town Worthing, Sompting Community in the Countryside, Worthing Wildflower Trail, We Are FoodPioneers.
Donations
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We are grateful to have received donations of tools, benches, plants, seeds, compost, wood, from more people and companies than we can individually thank, but you know who you are! We have also had generous donations from families and friends of some of our clients who have passed away, and these have helped us to improve and enhance our gardens, and from others which has helped us to run special programmes. We have often been asked if we have a Giving Scheme and so we have joined Local Giving - click on this link to see more localgiving.org/charity/breathingspaces/
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Privacy - data protection
Contacting people
We keep a contact file securely on one of our computers and on one phone. It includes customers, suppliers, volunteers, referral agencies, stakeholders, supporters and people who we believe may want to receive information about our events and services.
Do we collect and hold data about our clients?
Breathing Spaces helps people to do gardening because we know that it can improve health and wellbeing – for example, by being more active, by reducing stress, by meeting new people, learning things, and being part of a community. If we make a note about these things when people start gardening with us and then check if anything changes over time, we can show if gardening makes a difference or not. This is useful to us so that we can make sure we are doing the right things and we hope it is also helpful to our clients to understand what sort of things make them feel good.
We keep this information safe and private. If we put information onto the computer we store names separately from the information and only Lisa and Claire will know the password to the names. If we produce a report about the information we do not show any names.
It is important to Breathing Spaces to be able to sometimes show an impact report to other people because it helps us to prove that what we do is worthwhile and needed. It helps us to work with more people and to get funding to carry on.
We believe that we have what the law calls ‘legitimate interests’ for collecting and processing this information. By that we mean a reasonable and genuine reason. We have tried to explain above why we think it is reasonable and we hope you agree. We also have a Data Protection Policy and Data Protection Procedures that we follow and which we are happy to share on request.
It is everyone's individual right to:
We keep a contact file securely on one of our computers and on one phone. It includes customers, suppliers, volunteers, referral agencies, stakeholders, supporters and people who we believe may want to receive information about our events and services.
- We will never pass this contact file on to anyone else.
- We will only use your details to contact you in ways that you would expect in the context of what we do.
- We will delete you from our contact file on request.
- We will only send a few general emails during the year to invite people to events and/or to keep you up to date with what we do. When we do a bulk mailing we will say that if you don’t want any further emails from us you should let us know and we will delete you from our contact list.
- We do also ask volunteers to complete a registration form giving some details about why they want to volunteer. We keep this securely until they finish volunteering with us.
- We have a Data Protection Policy and Data Protection Procedures that we follow and which we are happy to share on request.
Do we collect and hold data about our clients?
Breathing Spaces helps people to do gardening because we know that it can improve health and wellbeing – for example, by being more active, by reducing stress, by meeting new people, learning things, and being part of a community. If we make a note about these things when people start gardening with us and then check if anything changes over time, we can show if gardening makes a difference or not. This is useful to us so that we can make sure we are doing the right things and we hope it is also helpful to our clients to understand what sort of things make them feel good.
We keep this information safe and private. If we put information onto the computer we store names separately from the information and only Lisa and Claire will know the password to the names. If we produce a report about the information we do not show any names.
It is important to Breathing Spaces to be able to sometimes show an impact report to other people because it helps us to prove that what we do is worthwhile and needed. It helps us to work with more people and to get funding to carry on.
We believe that we have what the law calls ‘legitimate interests’ for collecting and processing this information. By that we mean a reasonable and genuine reason. We have tried to explain above why we think it is reasonable and we hope you agree. We also have a Data Protection Policy and Data Protection Procedures that we follow and which we are happy to share on request.
It is everyone's individual right to:
- say that we cannot keep or use information about you
- ask to see what we do with information about you
- ask us to correct any mistakes
- ask us not to show it to anyone
- ask for a copy for your own use
- ask us to delete it
- make a complaint to the authorities if you think we are doing something wrong with data about you.