The Social Return on Investment (SROI) of the Master Gardener Programme

Background Garden Organic’s volunteer mentor network team coordinates and manages a number of programmes each designed to promote the core principles of organic horticulture and the benefits that composting and growing your own produce can bring

An Evaluation of the Master Gardener Programme at HMP Rye Hill:An Horticultural Intervention with Substance Misusing Offenders

Prisons are increasingly looking for localised, innovative and collaborative approaches to address rehabilitation and full recovery from substance misuse. This article presents the findings from an evaluation of the Master Gardener (MG) programme, a gardening intervention with substance misuse offenders at HMP Rye Hill. Whilst the extension of the MG programme to a prison setting recognises a range of positive outcomes associated with the role of horticulture in supporting wellbeing, it also reflects Rye Hill’s move towards the development of a dedicated Recovery Unit, offering a suite of interventions to support substance misusing offenders. The MG programme at Rye Hill demonstrates an innovative and successful partnership, working with the charity Garden Organic, Public Health Northamptonshire and the Drug and Alcohol Recovery Team (DART), using horticulture as a means to address recovery. This paper sets out the evaluation’s aims and objectives, methodological approach, key findings and conclusions which include a number of recommendations. The approach taken has allowed for an examination of the process and experiences from multiple perspectives of the MG programme within a prison setting. As well as focusing on the impacts of the programme, the article reflects on gardening as an embodied practice and the garden as a space that promotes humanisation and self-worth, community, a connection to nature and a longer term, holistic approach to recovery

Out of sight, out of mind: ethnic inequalities in child protection and out-of-home care intervention rates

This paper examines the interlocking roles of ethnicity and deprivation in producing inequities in the proportion of children who are subject to state child protection interventions. In contrast to the USA, ethnic inequities have had little attention in research or policy in the UK and across Europe, and administrative data are limited and methodologically weak. A study of over 10 per cent of all children on child protection plans or who were looked after in out-of-home care in England in March 2012 is reported. Children from ethnic minority categories were much more likely than 'White' children to be living in disadvantaged areas and this has to be taken into account when examining intervention rates. Controlling for deprivation and examining small subgroups of the broad ethnic categories radically alters the simple understanding that 'Black' children are overrepresented compared to White amongst children in out-of-home care, while 'Asian' children are underrepresented. While this study could not explain these patterns, it reinforces the importance of both socio-economic circumstances and ethnicity for understanding inequities in intervention rates. The evidence underlines the powerful moral and economic case for action to reduce inequities in powerful state interventions in family life, not only in England, but internationally