We were very excited to complete our very first Trauma-Focussed Garden and the completion of the 6-week resilience workshop. To celebrate the completion and to invite our artist Edie Cohn to sign the painting she created on the walls at Cumberland Juvenile justice detention center. We came up with a logo for a t-shirt idea.

Hope you all liked it. It was designed by Jayanthi and Natasha and Holly (Dr. Natasha’s daughter) working overnight and getting it printed in fervor and excitement! Along with all our members and supporters’ feedback. We got it printed the same week!! We are very proud of the way it looks and it conveys the idea that the whole world will have many such gardens very shortly! So team, gear up to travel with us virtually and spread the concept!!

As we begin to deal with a global pandemic as a community, we wanted to let you know how Trauma Focused Therapeutic Community (TFTC) Gardens is adapting and responding, so we can keep doing the important work of creating spaces for at-risk adults and youth designed using trauma-informed research to build long-term resiliency skills.

We are prioritizing the health of our volunteers, staff, and the entire community. The COVID-19 pandemic is a social and economic justice issue, as well as a health crisis. Protecting our community is our number one priority, and we understand that we have a social responsibility to keep others safe.

We are postponing all TFTC Gardens projects until further notice to enable our volunteers and supporters to focus on their immediate and community-based needs. During this downtime, we encourage you to reach out to local organizations that are working on the front lines of our communities serving our most vulnerable populations.

We will be sharing updates on our social media accounts and website as new information comes available. Thank you for continuing to build strong and healthy communities.

Your friends at TFTC Gardens

Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Time: 12pm (noon)
Location: Cumberland County Communicare
109 Bradford Avenue, Fayetteville, NC

RSVP – Reserve your seat

We are grateful for your generous support and dedication to this project. We have outlined the current priorities and the participating parties. Please share your updates as they become available with us and we will keep everyone updated.

1. 12’x12′ square concrete outdoor classroom area and 12′ round counseling area: Annie Harvey with NC DPS JJ
2. Irrigation system: group members reaching out to find local irrigation system experts
3. Soil information, amount of fertilizer, compost, lime: Jason Weathington with Cumberland County Coop Extention
4. Sun Awnings: Lisa Jayne with Fayetteville Police Department
5. Plants: Jason Weathington with Cumberland County Coop Extention and Riley Hickman
6. Compacted dirt pathways:
7. Standing planters: Amy Stidman can offer information about costs/ suppliers
8. Additional drawings and additions as needed Riley Hickman
9. Lowe’s:  Reka Reyna with Cape Fear Valley Health and Cumberland wellness
10. Volunteers: Oates Samuel with FPD/MCD, Tony Brown with Southern CC Inc, Reka Reyna with Cape Fear Valley Health

Please find attached our current drawing for the entire hardscape garden areas and the right portion of the garden area by Riley. The right portion includes inner walking paths connecting the counseling area, water feature, exterior walking path, and the outdoor classroom.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday. September 17, 2019, at 12 pm/noon at Cumberland County Communicare. RSVP – reserve your seat.

This is a mental health initiative designed to promote positive emotional well-being using an outdoor space. This space will introduce trauma-focused care initiatives to encourage emotional recovery and the building of resiliency skills.  It is now known that environments whether indoor or outdoor will have an impact on our emotional well-being.

The next phase on this project is a community planning meeting on August 15, 2019. We are excited about the beginning of phase 3 with therapeutic garden areas.

This is a mental health initiative designed to promote positive emotional well-being using indoor and outdoor spaces. These spaces will introduce trauma-focused care initiatives to encourage emotional recovery and the building of resiliency skills.  It is now known that environments whether indoor or outdoor will have an impact on our emotional well-being.

For example, can we expect young people in lock and key facilities to be able to improve social and emotional skills in a facility without a specially designed therapeutic space?  A TFTC Garden or indoor space is designed using resiliency strategies. Students can learn how to express themselves using color codes, pacing pathways, music, deep breathing, yoga, water features, and sensory plants – all to promote a positive new start.

Students and staff can work on resiliency strategies together. There can be shared healthy conversations about life in the garden. Above all, as described by a Juvenile in a Detention Center, “they will give me a chance to leave a message for others by leaving a plant or an artwork to let other new students know that there is hope.”

This is a step forward in social equity for at-risk populations – a space, where for the first time, deeper self-learning can take place. Resiliency skills will reduce the risk of suicide, improve mental well-being and provide a skill set to help reduce the risk of recidivism. We cannot expect young people to know what they don’t know. Our aim is that these spaces will provide a legacy of emotional expression and recovery.

“These emotional expression spaces can be specifically designed for both public and private use, in any setting and for any age group. We all need little things to help us with our emotional wellbeing.” Natasha Donnelly, PhD

The first phase of our trauma-informed therapy garden project is complete with a beautiful mural! We are grateful for artists Edie Cohn who created the design and vision of this mural and Jerdahn Campbell who shared her artistic talents with the students and staff at Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center and bringing light to an often forgotten group in our community.

This project would not have been successful without our generous volunteers Edie Cohn, Jerdahn Campbell, Dawn Thomas with Juvenile Justice, Marsha Hall and her mom Marsha, Reka Reyna with Cape Fear Valley Health, and Natasha Donnelly and Anna Campbell with TFTC Gardens. We also want to extend a very big thank you to the incredible staff at Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center for helping us over this three-week project!

Our next phase includes installing a water feature, walking paths, a counseling area, an outdoor classroom, a music therapy section, and horticultural learning areas!

For anyone who loves to garden, create art, design landscapes, implement contract developments or help create outdoor healthy spaces, this might be a project you would like to involved with too. Plans are in the works to create the gardens all over North Carolina, and then beyond – the adventure has only begun!

Here is our progress report from May 19, 2019.

1. Trauma Focused Therapeutic Community Gardens – (TFTC) Gardens is now registered as a non-profit organization in the state of North Carolina so fundraising can officially begin (Our Go Fund Me fundraiser page has gone live!).
2. We now have military, veteran and police volunteers who will be joining the team to assist when we have a timeline firmed up.
3. Master Gardener’s in Fayetteville, Cape Fear Botanical Gardens and Fayetteville technical college will be supporting the garden planting, etc. A landscape architect is creating a CAD drawing with all the measurements for accuracy moving forward. Soil sampling will take place in the coming weeks. Cape Fear Therapeutic Gardening program will guide us with therapeutic plants for the gardens and help guide us on sustainability and safety issues etc. Fayetteville Technical College has offered to provide some of the plants and assist with discounts on topsoils etc.
4. Concrete contractors will be visiting the Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center next week.
5. Plans will start taking place for a fund-raising event in Fayetteville and an online campaign (Tena Sonko with Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center is coordinating with us for a Plate Sale on June 28, 2019).
6. Natasha is having talks at Duke University who will be assisting with the evaluation of this initiative.
7. Natasha is also working on an iPad evaluation system and will be reaching out to tech folks (We have been in contact with Jayanthi Raghu with Kryssalis Software, LLC.).
8. A new committee has been established for the artists involved in the project and a timeline is being established.
9. The Cumberland Wellness Team are excited and involved as we progress.

We are thrilled about the amount of progress that has been made and we look forward to additional updates with volunteer dates and sponsorship opportunities soon! For more information about how you can be involved, visit our Volunteer/Donor interest page!

Join us as we work together to create an exciting positive social change and make trauma-focused therapeutic community gardens a reality.

“The success of this project is that everyone has a valuable part to play. These gardens are being built by the community for the community. They are owned by the community and valued by the community. The aim is to celebrate everyone involved every step of the way. Life is about celebrating the little things which, when gathered together, become the most valuable things – they are the essence of what creates shared happiness.” – Natasha Donnelly

Mission Statement

TFTC Gardens will be involved in the research, design, evaluation, support, and funding for organizations to build gardens designed around trauma recovery initiatives for at-risk youth.

Use of Funds

Donations are being accepted through our Go Fund Me fundraiser. Donations received will be used towards our first garden installation at Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center and to seed future gardens for at-risk youth. All funds will be deposited into the TFTC Gardens organization bank account.

Garden areas being funded:

• hardscape pathways
• natural pathways with mulch
• plants within the rainbow pattern
• plants within herb and vegetable garden
• structure for a small outdoor classroom
• sunshades for the garden area
• irrigation system
• gardening tools
• basketball court resurfacing
• exterior murals
• exterior tile student artwork
• fountain fixture and plumbing
• grass for open areas
• mosaic and decorative pieces for hardscape pathways
• interactive learning and therapy app
• interactive color therapy app

Focus

The focus is to provide safe spaces for recovery, ways of connecting with others and for vocational training. These gardens will include sensory zones, plantings for education and reconnecting with nature–including where food comes from; outdoor classrooms, active art areas, pacing pathways, and poetry reading/ yoga spaces. The goal is that these multipurpose outdoor spaces will be built in youth centers across North Carolina and beyond.

The Power of Your Donations

A custom guidebook for this trauma-focused therapeutic space will accompany the gardens to suggest ways that each special section could be utilized by students, staff, and visitors.

These unique trauma-focused gardens will –

• Provide safe spaces and activities for trauma recovery – including sensory plants, pathways, Luke’s Leap of Faith (an accessible mosaic river with stepping stones), colored spaces for mood expression, yoga, and art expression walls. Innovative approaches with a guidebook to enhance the recovery process.
• Encourage social connections – a space for group work, joining together and providing healthy conversation topics about garden life and activities.
• Provide vocational training – learning about plants, growing healthy vegetables, learning to cook with fresh vegetables, building garden structures and more.
• Promote science education – educational experiences in outdoor classrooms to enhance the learning experience.
• Provide spaces for community and family engagement.
• Aid in suicide prevention.
• Facilitate stress relief for staff – to reduce staff burnout and improve staff retention.

Donate Today

Join us as we work together to create an exciting positive social change. Be a part of our trauma-focused therapeutic community gardens© becoming a reality. Donate Today!

This garden design was created for Whitaker PRTF.  This garden was designed and researched by Natasha Donnelly, Ph.D. and psychologist Carol Williams (safety, therapeutic concepts, and other sensory garden research). This design was created with the support of the Clinical Director Ray Newnam and Ben Markoch at NC State, now an alumnus who kindly measured the space and put our ideas into a drawing.

View the original garden design here.

Natasha brought this drawing to her job interview at Juvenile Justice where she introduced the idea and concept as part of her role. She worked on this design for a year at Juvenile Justice until reaching out to the NC State Horticultural Department for advice about plants where she was introduced to Anne Spafford and the NC State horticultural students.

This design has been instrumental in ongoing fundraisers, planning sessions, meetings, and the formation of our nonprofit organization, Trauma Focused Therapeutic Community Gardens – TFTC Gardens. TFTC Gardens provides an avenue for us to share our findings, research, and garden plans with at-risk populations who are interested in investing in gardens throughout the United States and the world.

Our first trauma-focused garden is scheduled to be installed during the summer of 2019 at Cumberland Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Fayetteville, NC.

Photo Credit: Priscilla Du Preez