TFTC Gardens is delighted to have started work at the Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center with the design and implementation of the first TFTC Garden. To be a TFTC Garden, the organization must include the structures recommended by the TFTC Gardens Team. These recommendations will help to promote mental wellbeing using resiliency strategies that we described earlier. The TFTC Gardens team has spent the last two years carrying out extensive mental health research including international networking, concept sharing, strategy development and creation of ideas for Juvenile Justice including providing support with grant applications.

Recently the TFTC Gardens team have been networking extensively in the Fayetteville area. They have discovered an incredible community who are supporting Juvenile Justice with the building phase of the garden. Reka Reyna, Outreach Co-ordinator, Steven A. Cohn Military Family Clinic, has done an outstanding job of organizing a group of volunteers from the local police departments, military groups, and veterans. We also have support of the Master Gardeners with Cape Fear Botanical Gardens and other local Fayetteville organizations.

Using generous public donations TFTC Gardens has funded a water feature and beautiful wall mural designed by Edie Cohn and painted by artists Edie Cohn and Jerdahn Campbell. Volunteers visited the detention center to help prep and prepare the wall for the mural. We are now excited to be moving forward to complete this project and then begin supporting another non-profit organization with the implementation of a specially designed TFTC Garden.

We look forward to hearing from you! We are always looking for volunteers to join the TFTC Gardens Team and generous donors who will help make our trauma-informed therapeutic community gardens possible. Community is everything.

Read more at Nami Wake County…

According to the 18th century English poet Alfred Austin, “To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.”

Dr. Natasha Donnelly, assistant manager of Juvenile Health Services, is the brainchild behind the project that will bring specially designed natural areas – sensory gardens – to Chatham Youth Development Center in Siler City and Cumberland Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Fayetteville, NC. Sensory gardens include plants and design elements that will provide experiences for heightened sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste.

Studies suggest that being able to see trees and flowers reduces agitation and aggression, and promotes healing. Donnelly envisions the gardens as a place where staff can more easily initiate healthy conversations with children in secure custody, and “a starting place for recovery, renewal and (to relearn) social skills for a healthier and more productive life.” These on-site gardens could also help the children to start developing skills working in the garden that can help them as they return to their communities.

Read the full article here.

Photo Credit: Juliana Malta