Welcome to the April update from Growing Care Farming 

Greetings from the Growing Care Farming team

We are now into week 6 of the lockdown response to COVID-19 and we have all been affected one way or another.  With service users unable to attend, many care farms are operating with skeleton staff and have had to shut their doors and furlough staff - and some may face an uncertain future.  Already operating on tight margins and with many seeing the bulk of their income coming from activities taking place in the warmer months, there is no doubt that these are tough times for our sector. 

Amidst many heartbreaking stories however, there are still reasons for optimism.  So many care farmers have been in touch with us, telling us stories of how they continue to connect with their clients, sharing their fantastic social media approaches and reporting how their communities, supporters and commissioners are rallying round them. Some farms are still operating a minimum service, with commissioners keen to see some of the most vulnerable service users continue to be supported, albeit it in a responsible, socially distanced way.  Care farms can rise to this challenge and, with a increased level of interest in how the outdoors can be so beneficial for our mental health, may even find themselves well-placed to be an important part of the nation's recovery when we finally step out of lockdown.

In the meantime, we at Growing Care Farming continue to work on your behalf.  All staff remain in post and have been working hard to turn a programme of work that was heavily focussed on face-to-face events, training and engagement into something that will likely be run completely remotely until January 2021.  We now have new software that will enable us to host online meetings and webinars for large groups and we are familiarising ourselves with this as we enter what is being coined 'the new normal'.  Our partners, Thrive, are reformatting our face-to-face training to make the courses appropriate for delivering remotely and we are working with our website provider to upgrade our ability to host different types of resources.

Social Farms & Gardens continues to monitor Government guidance and you can find comprehensive information on our webpages highlighting useful websites and resources and we are gathering information from farms and gardens across the country to create a picture of how this period is affecting all our members.  If you haven't already done so, please fill our survey on how COVID-19 is affecting you.  It is so important that your views are represented when we are communicating with policy makers.

Regional Engagement

During this period our face to face programme of regional engagement and Going Live events will be postponed allowing us to concentrate on supporting care farmers across all regions.  Instead, we will run monthly webinars with a variety of themes to not only enable sharing of information but also provide networking and peer support. 

We recognise that it is crucially important that you stay in touch with others at this time and hear how farms across the country are dealing with issues such as fundraising, engagement with clients, furloughing staff and continuing to manage your site and animals.  We ran a couple of these as a test with a small group of participants earlier this month and we also ran the Yorkshire & Humberside Care Farming Network meeting remotely last week.  These worked well and attendees appreciated the opportunity to see and hear from each other.

Join us for a Webinar!

We have scheduled the first open-to-all webinar using our new software on Tuesday 5th May from 2 - 3pm.  For this one we will look at 'Creative Engagement & Social Media'.  The GCF team will be joined by Lucy Thornton from Thornwood Alpacas and Geoff Stevens from Pathways Care Farm to share some of the great work they have been doing to continue to engage with their clients and stakeholders. 

We'd love for others to join us to either learn from them, share your stories about how you are managing this or simply to tune in and have a listen and see what's going on. 

If you would like to join us please register here. You don't need fancy cameras or web equipment as it is possible to simply dial in by phone if you prefer or if your internet connection is poor.

Other News

Rachel is currently working hard on analysing the results of the annual survey that was circulated earlier in the spring - thanks to all those who filled this out.  The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that we haven't done the promised prize draw - rest assured this hasn't been forgotten!  Our plan had been to film it when the team were all together in Bristol, which obviously isn't possible right now so we are looking at virtual ways of doing this and sharing the results.  Keep an eye on our Twitter feed to keep updated. 

We look forward to sharing information from the annual survey and will run a webinar on this before we release the report to a wider audience.

Finally, if you have a chance, take a look at 'The Road to Renewal' run by the Food, Farming & Countryside Commission.  They are gathering information on how the food and farming sectors are adapting to the pandemic and it would be great if we could get some care farms showcased there.  Let us know if you have anything published.

Stay safe everyone and keep in touch with us.  We love to hear from you!
 

You can send general enquiries to [email protected] or you can contact Debbie and Rachel on [email protected]