Pathway of Development to Potential Greater Independent Living

As well as residential services, we also offer our service users a full programme of day activities and other services to support them to live their life according to their own interests and needs.

Arts & Crafts

Fostering an understanding and appreciation of arts and craft as a means of expression and communication.

The activities available to students are varied and include drawing, painting, history of art, pottery, fabric sculpture, quilling, paper making and spinning.

The sessions are atmosphere, giving every student the opportunity to reach their full potential and enjoy the sense of achievement when projects are completed.

Aims

• To give all clients an understanding of the history of art and the opportunity to participate in a variety of centre activities allowing self expression and confidence building.
• To use the sessions to improve hand/eye co-ordination, motor skills and dexterity.
• To help the clients appreciate the use of art and craft as a communication medium.

Gardening & Horticulture

A year-round activity providing the satisfaction ofgrowing and caring for a variety of plants at all stages of development, and promoting an understanding of the seasonal requirements that govern success with plants.

Individuals will be involved in a range of activities in caring for the various grounds and gardens at group properties. The students will be involved not only in outside work, but within poly-tunnels where they will learn to plant seeds and maintain them until they are transplanted to outside settings.

Students are individually taught how to prepare gardens and borders for various types of plants and shrubs. They share in the tending of the vegetable garden. Teaching sessions are held so that students may learn the significance of factors which govern plant success; such as positioning - those which need shelter - fertility, soil type and varying degrees of sun and shade.

Aims

• To establish an understanding of the different seasons of the year and to develop work that relates to seasonal patterns.
• To teach the correct and safe use of garden tools.
• To enable students to grow, sell or eat produce grown by themselves.
• To establish an understanding of the value of growing food and maintenance of garden areas.

Estate Management

The substantial grounds at several of the group properties provide an environment in which students learn the safe use of basic tools whilst developing and improving the environment where they live and work.

Various projects undertaken within the grounds provide the occasion for teaching students how to read plans and worksheets.

The group maintains large properties including Ocknell Park and Heywood Sumner House. The large grounds include landscape gardens, agricultural sites and a variety of other areas used for recreational purposes.

Students will become involved with the Forestry Commission's replanting programme which entails the thinning out of existing trees and the planting of saplings.

Aims

• To develop a better understanding of the environment and its upkeep.
• To develop a basic understanding of tool use and their safe handling.
• To promote elements of teamwork within the individual's role in this environment.

Wildlife & Nature Studies

The grounds in which the group properties are set offer opportunities for the observation and study of a range of wildlife.

The group maintains and runs various homes on large estates. Because of their rural setting, a variety of resident and migratory birds and wild animals can be seen by the observant onlooker. Residents within the homes who are interested in doing so are encouraged to develop, as a hobby, such activities as bird watching, deer spotting and to learn the habits and behaviour of various wildlife within their different habitats.

At Ocknell Park the Woodland Studies Centre - constructed as a log cabin near the pond - is used to enable clients to explore the woods in a new, exciting and fun way and acts as a meeting base for carrying out projects, experiments and completing work sheets.

Aims

• To give clients a wider appreciation of their environment and the interdependence of animals and their habitat.
• To teach clients how to identify various plants, fungi, birds, animals and insects found in different habitats within the grounds and to gain an insight into their habits and behaviours.
• To promote an interest that can extend into an active hobby within which energies are more appropriately directed.

Day Out Activities

Creating a range of social activities to promote friendship, communication and personal inter-action.

Currently offered within group services are:

Regular fishing trips for interested individuals at local rivers and lakes.

Local recreation centres are used, thus making available to all clients a wide range of sporting activities.

Aims

• To promote social activities and hobbies as a means of extending personal inter-action and making friends.
• To develop individual interests as a channel for otherwise inappropriate behaviours.
• To develop greater social networks.
• To allow clients to develop skills introduced in educational and day-care sessions.