This World Environment Day we’re continuing to take small, meaningful steps across our services to care for the environment and to encourage others to join us on our journey.
Today gives us an opportunity to acknowledge the difference working together makes – for our charity, for the people we support and for the wider environment.
We’re so fortunate that all of our services have inviting outdoor spaces for the people we support to enjoy, from small urban gardens to the expansive grounds and woodland at the Alan Shearer Centre.
These spaces are not only there to be enjoyed – they are places where people can play an active role in shaping and caring for the environment around them.
Like the team of staff who are helping to re-purpose an established raised bed in the garden of our St Catherine’s nursing home, transforming it into a low-level rockery. Once completed, it will make it easier for residents to take part in gardening while improving views across the garden — especially important for those less able to spend time outdoors.
Encouraging and supporting local wildlife is also important and, at our children’s homes, some of the young people really enjoy gardening, with one young man even building a bird box from scratch.
We are immensely grateful to our gardening volunteers, too, who help us to care for our grounds and gardens – particularly at the Alan Shearer Centre, where their efforts continue to support the natural environment and its range of wild visitors, including foxes and deer.
Alongside these environmental and wellbeing benefits, this work has also played a key role in gaining nationally recognised environmental accreditation.
Gill Ennis, the charity’s Director of Compliance, said:
“As we continue to develop the scope of our environmental work, we are pleased to have achieved independent, nationally recognised verification for our current practices within the first year of working to our environmental plan.
“This reflects the shared commitment across our services to care for our environment and the spaces we all enjoy, and we’re proud to be building on this together as we look to progress towards the next tier of accreditation.”
This World Environment Day reminds us that even small, everyday actions can build into lasting, positive change.