Redhall Walled Garden – Cultivating Recovery | Submitted thoughts and stories

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Redhall Walled Garden – Cultivating Recovery

Author: Jan Cameron, at Redhall Walled Garden
Published: 03 November 2006

Jan work’s at Redhall Walled Garden in Edinburgh, (a service managed by the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH)). The aim of Redhall is to promote a safe environment where individuals can learn to deal with the challenges of recovering from long-term mental health problems, encouraging lifestyles, which are positive and sustainable, health orientated and free from destructive dependency.

It is really hard to describe to someone what happens at Redhall, and so many people ask! We usually invite them to spend a day with us in the garden so they can see for themselves. We actually now set aside the first Wednesday of every month for people to come and visit, see a short presentation, do a site tour and spend the day working with us.

People attending Redhall usually acknowledge that their life is not going the way they want it to and that they want something to change. But for that to happen they have to learn to do things differently in terms of their behaviour, thinking, and life styles. We accept that it is enormously challenging and that to step out of our usual patterns puts us into unknown territory and that can be very frightening. Its like taking someone’s hand and asking them to cross a bridge over a deep chasm with you that you can see but they can’t .So our first job is to make Redhall feel like a safe place where people can be held and supported securely to do some of this work of trying out new ways and having the old ways challenged. We know that when you feel vulnerable, being challenged can feel like an attack. We have to work hard at making that feel positive and supportive and that we are on that person’s side. We are working with them to affect positive change in their life and to help them see that the opposite of challenge can be neglect. As people begin to grow in trust and confidence they can begin to tackle doing things that can feel really dangerous for them. For example, taking part in a site meeting with a large group of people, travelling on public transport, risking making a mistake, looking at the past in order to grow beyond it and so on.

The garden itself is a wonderful metaphor for health. Organics in horticulture is all about creating the conditions for health rather than treating the symptoms of disease. It is easy to see the parallels with the human condition! In horticultural terms when we try to create a healthy growing environment we look at good nutrition, good hygiene routines, regular watering/nurturing, pruning out unproductive growth to concentrate energy on the healthy branches, fresh air, time to rest and room to grow and unfold safely – ring any bells? We also practice companion planting. This is recognition that some plants help others to grow stronger when planted alongside them. In human terms we believe that people grow stronger when they work alongside people who believe in their recovery. We often get people coming to Redhall worried about being with other people with mental health problems because they have been advised not to associate too much with other patients while they were in the hospital. In our experience it is not your status (whether service user or professional health worker) that makes a difference it is what you believe in. Here at Redhall the people who attend this service feel truly committed to the journey of recovery and are creative, constructive and warmly supportive of each other. I have often been very humbled to watch the way people will wrap round someone who is in great distress and gently enfold and hold them in what looks to me like a warm comfy blanket, in a way that professional workers are often frightened to do.

Recycling is also a great metaphor. People usually come to the garden with a feeling of being broken and useless and on the scrap heap. At Redhall we believe in recycling for reasons of economy and cutting down on waste, which involves getting the best out of our resources! So when we look at a pile of old broken wooden pallets we don’t see useless rubbish we see the potential for building not refurbished old pallets but beautiful new garden furniture, fences, gates etc. The old wood enables us to make something far more attractive and robust than the original material. So people recover, not back to who they once were but to a person they want to be, using all the potential and good qualities they bring with them and develop on the way.

My last job was in a Barnardo’s unit for children, where I worked as the gardener with emotionally disturbed children – the emphasis of that work promoting positive behaviour through good adult role modelling- surely every child’s right. Focus was on affirmations and not punishment or negative reinforcement. I used to love introducing children to the joys of foraging for raspberries or digging up potatoes and help them to feel for themselves that realisation of nature’s bounty. I brought that with me. Enthusiasm and encouragement work better than any punishment ever could. In common with the rest of my colleagues I am passionate about the healing power of a garden/nature and its ability to help people. It’s that passion that helps capture people’s imagination, it’s something bigger than yourself, which is really important.

At first there was only two of us employed here at Redhall, we worked together for about 10 years, somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. Gradually the people we worked with taught us a language to describe that emotional inner journey of the recovery experience, especially when it follows a lifetime of abuse or trauma. Everyone we work with lays a path for someone who will come after him or her and this helps to work more effectively with the next person. Although we never go down the same recovery path twice, the person before usually has given a gate or a stepping stone in to the next person’s story – aiding a better understanding.

The garden has been around since 1784; SAMH has leased it since 1984. Physically it has changed hugely but the aims and commitments feel the same. Everyone that comes to Redhall changes it, in really subtle ways. I think it has grown enormously. The heart of it has grown. When SAMH obtained the lease for the garden it was bare of topsoil and planting.. A garden is only as old as its topsoil, so in the beginning we were digging into boulders and clay. So essentially what you have here is a fairly young garden within an old wall. The fact that it’s been a dedicated space for over 200 years has real power and people feel that.

When I first started here I hated the walls. I felt enclosed and really didn’t like them. But I have come to love them. There is something magical about a walled garden that is hard to replicate anywhere else. I think that Redhall is a special place. When you build a wall - that is for a long time - it’s not like wire or a fence. The wall that encloses Redhall seems to add a real spiritual atmosphere. You can’t see any other buildings from the garden, you don’t feel like you are in the city, you feel like you are out in the country. Every day when I come down the drive it I feels like I am stepping into a place apart

There is no time limit on how long people can stay with Redhall - however long it takes. My thoughts are that if you give people a safely challenging place, eventually they will make it work for themselves. I have learned over the years not to give up on people. People go at their own pace and gradually their worlds get bigger. I have sometimes thought that maybe someone has been here too long and that I don’t see any progress for them (although I wonder why I think I can be the judge of that!) and suddenly after many years they will do something truly amazing like give up a lifelong addiction, find a real vocation and take on a really high powered position and make a fantastic job of it or suddenly produce the most wonderful art work – the list goes on

Generally people start at Redhall working 3 days a week; gradually we try to get them to work up to 5 days a week. We encourage people “not to drop in on their mental health” as one of my colleagues always says! Then when that feels manageable and they feel ready we might start to arrange for people to go out on placements, or go to college or do some voluntary work a day or two a week. There is no rule or time frame for this, we will arrange placements when a person feels comfortable with it. Our aim is not to have people here forever but to support them into whatever activities they want.

We have tried to develop a support system that meets people’s emotional needs for safety, control, autonomy, friendship, emotional connection, a sense of meaning, and status. (These are also known as The Human Givens, Mindfields College)

Loss of status feels like a huge issue. One of the things we encourage people to do is to define themselves differently. Many people come to Redhall for that first visit and describe themselves in terms of the symptoms of ill health, and that is so sad, but it has been the basis of their interaction with medical people often for years. They have forgotten what they enjoy, what they are passionate about, what their dreams are, and the belief that people might be interested in that side of them! We try to get people to see themselves differently, as a worker in horticultural, admin, training and development and so on. People then have a positive role and that works much better in the community. Some one can go down to their local pub and when asked what they do, they can identify themselves as a horticulturalist or an admin worker. Later on many people have said they feel they can choose if they want to identify themselves as someone who uses mental health services or a horticulturalist. But the important thing is that, that’s their choice. Having this more positive role (as perceived by society) results in a huge turnaround for people, they start to see themselves as WHO they are rather than WHAT their diagnosis is. Talk about living your label! That’s the real tragedy. We ask, “What excites you? What do you want?” not “What is your diagnosis?”

Mental health training is a big part of our work. Training is developed at Redhall for the purpose of taking it to other organisation and the focus for the training and the training it’s self all comes from the people who use the service. We try to get all the people at Redhall to think of themselves as trainers. We have offered training in recovery, mental health awareness, stigma and so on. It’s a fascinating journey for all of us. The trainees help to put the training together, we then deliver it to the whole site, go back and refine it and then we take it out and deliver the training to where it’s required or on site to the droves of visitors we get. I get a sense that the people who are heavily involved with the training are usually the ones that head out back into the world the fastest. The training seems to help people see the bigger picture; it helps them to see themselves in relation to society. They become less introspective and more able to see where they fit, it becomes less personal, and perhaps importantly it gives a way of using sometimes quite terrible experiences positively to help other people.

Unfortunately, there is usually a waiting list for Redhall. One of the conditions is that people self refer, we ask for a reference letter from someone in the medical profession to back up the referral but we really need people to make the commitment themselves. Redhall is hard work. It’s a challenge and people really have to want to be here. It doesn’t work if someone else thinks this is a good idea for you, YOU need to think it’s a good idea for you.

Working at Redhall and with SAMH I’ve realised that it is most important not to lose sight of people as individuals, we all share the human condition. I work to not view people as “staff” and “service users” and I can lose this perspective very easily. I can get lulled into a routine and can begin to make a lot of assumptions about the way I work. I can begin to think “I’ve been doing this for a while, I can just handle this situation the same way, and it will all be fine.” Once I begin to do that, I’ve lost it. It’s important to always be looking at what I am doing and to be prepared to do it differently all the time because it is always different, it’s always changing. I have to face and embrace that change and then it takes me on a wave. We take a lot of students of various backgrounds and they are great at making us look critically at what we do.

If someone comes through the door today and they’ve never been here before and they’re brand new to me, I need to be brand new for them. I need to be really keen to meet that person and find out who they are and what they like and don’t like, what they want and don’t want, in a way that needs to be fresh and open. I need to be excited and I need to want to do it. I need to remember to let people define their own progress and if people don’t get a job, or whatever I have expected, at the end of the day, that’s OK, if that’s what they choose.

Redhall is not about doing things for people, it’s really about trusting people, trusting people to get it right, for themselves. And if it doesn’t happen exactly as planned then we’ll live with that. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I don’t have a personal development plan! I don’t always know what I want and I am forever getting it wrong. We just have to try. Helping people find the courage to try and do the things they want to do and face the things they don’t want to do-that is part of recovery for me. It has to be what the individual wants. And it’s hard because we can become egotistical and say things like, “Oh, I know, she should do that,” but we all need to just be still and let people work out their own recovery. If you ask people what they want, they don’t say services and support workers or pills or doctors. They say that they want a home; a partner, a job, a holiday and so on, someone to love, someone to listen.

I know that Redhall works for me as much as it does for the people attending it. If it didn’t work for me, how would it work for anyone else? It has to be exciting and interesting and for me as that’s part of my recovery. Boundaries are so intrinsic, but if you keep your distance people can feel that. Getting that right is very complex but it feels to me something to do with transparency, being clear and being able to explain your stance. People at Redhall tend to be open about their own experiences without allowing that to be intrusive. It’s a very human approach. We are in there every day getting dirty and sweaty and hungry and having lots of fun, working hard and getting tired. People get to know each other best by doing things together. There is a connectedness and connection is important to recovery. If people don’t feel like equals to the staff how can they build their confidence? Being equals however does not mean being the same and clarity on the roles and responsibilities is crucial. It’s the, “I’m OK, you’re OK” message. There is a give and take at Redhall, the people who come here bring a huge amount of wisdom with them and they are really the trainers here
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Some of the staff are former service users, and others have close family experiences. So there is a lot of insight in the way they work with people. Staff ratios are high, 6 support staff to 50 trainees so there needs to be and there is lot of informal peer support going on. This plays a huge role at Redhall. For the first 10 years there were only two staff and 35 trainees and the people could see that we couldn’t run the service on our own so it made them more responsible.

There is a consensus at Redhall that the term ‘service user’ does not accurately describe the people who come here, which is why they choose to be called trainees. It doesn’t feel right to call people ‘service users’ because they put so much into the service. It’s really basic to how they want to work, it’s not about coming and using Redhall, it’s about coming and being involved in building and developing Redhall and working for SAMH. It’s being given the chance to put something back that makes a difference to how people feel. When people realise that, they are well on their way to recovery.

15 years is a long time. It’s been a huge journey of discovery. Some days I feel like I don’t know what I am doing here. Then I go out and work in the garden with the “guys” and the garden does its work and I realise that all I have to do is be here and accept the bad days as a time to reflect. It’s about commitment. I wonder if presence is probably 90% of any therapy; just being there for people is what helps. I feel that the people who walk through that gate for the first time when they feel like nothing and say, “My life’s not going very well, I need you to help me” are so brave. I don’t know if I could do it myself. It means that everyone here is special.

I feel privileged to work here. I love coming to work. Even the difficult parts when someone is telling me something awful that has happened to them, while stressful, it’s also a privilege that someone trusts me with that and I am always inspired by the courage that people show. I’m so glad Redhall is here for people to be able to share their experiences. I may need it someday and I want it to be here. The world feels safer to me knowing that there are places where people feel safe enough to open up and share and support each other and believe in a future for themselves.

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The stories presented here are for information only. They are meant to inspire hope and show that recovery can and does happen. The stories highlight various examples of recovery and we do not advocate any of these experiences as the ‘right’ way to recover. Recovery is an individual and unique process, each person must decide for himself or herself what will work for them. Please carefully consider any decisions you make about your own recovery and consult with someone you trust if you feel unsure.

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