The Recovery Garden Toolkit is a Kentucky CES resource developed by a multi-disciplinary team of Extension Agents, Specialists, Nutrition Education Program (NEP) Assistants and Extension Faculty from Community and Leadership Development, Nutrition Education, Horticulture, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Family and Consumer Sciences. The goal of the Recovery Garden Toolkit is to support Extension Agents and Nutrition Educators to implement sustainable, impactful, collaborative programming that brings together gardening, nutrition education, and other related Extension programming at substance use recovery centers across Kentucky.  The project is supported by a $55,000 2021 Kentucky Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop grant (Breazeale-2200000687).

While the Toolkit was undergoing peer review, the Senior Extension Associate for Nutrition Education (Pratt) and Faculty with Community and Leadership Development (Breazeale) supported by the Local Food Systems Specialist (Knappage) began hosting trainings for Extension and Agents and NEP assistants on the materials from the toolkit to support Agents and Assistants in the development of Recovery Garden Programs in conjunction with the NEP Healthy Choices for Everybody curriculum taught be NEP Assistants.  Topics included: building collaborative partnerships (across program areas and with Substance Use Recovery Centers), fostering the leadership abilities of gardeners, using de-stigmatizing language, practicing liberatory teaching strategies that build positive social connections for those in recovery, integrating mindfulness and other nature-based art activities into programming, evaluation to improve impact, and working with media and public officials.  

So far, 9 toolkit trainings have been held from the Months of January-June 2023. The average attendance at those trainings is 12 people with the highest attendance being 72. Comments from training evaluations include: “I learned that planning is crucial!” “I’m going to try to find more community partners.” And “I love everything about this!”

From the trainings, 7 Kentucky counties have implemented joint Recovery Garden Programs at one or more Substance Use Recovery Center in their counties. In these seven counties, 9 Extension Agents and 8 NEP assistants will be collaborating to deliver programming on gardening and nutrition education.  It is estimated that these seven sites will provide direct education to 300 Kentuckians in substance use recover centers. The earliest post-test survey results indicate that participants learned “a lot” about how to grow and care for plants, how gardening can contribute to substance use recovery, and about strategies to take better care of themselves and feel calmer. Garden participants from Perry County reported, “This was a first actually working in a garden and I really enjoyed it!” “I learned a lot about gardening as well as health and wellness.” “I enjoyed everything about this experience.  Especially the fact that it’s a raised bed.  This is very beneficial to me due to my previous knee injury that often prevents me from bending.”  “I loved it all!” was mentioned by multiple people.  

In addition to Recovery Garden Toolkit Trainings, these seven sites also received one on one support from Pratt and Breazeale to implement a customized program evaluation for program participants. The implementation and evaluation phases of the Spring/Summer 2023 Recovery Garden Program will take place May-August 2023. In September of 2023, a new cohort of Agents and NEP Assistants will be invited to join the Recovery Garden Toolkit workshop series for training and support. The goal is to support the implementation of 20 Recovery Garden programs across Kentucky by the end of 2024.

Number of trainings: 9

Avg. Number of training attendees: 12

Number of counties implementing recovery garden spring 2023: 7

Number of agents participating in implementation:9

Number of NEP Assistants participating in implementation:8

Recovery Garden Toolkit Contributors: Nicole Breazeale, Bethany Pratt, Jann Knappage, Brooke Jenkins, Paula Plonski, Michele West, Susan Grimmet, Angela Freeman, Kara Back, Beth Wilson, Annette Heisdorffer, Amanda Sears, Alexander Elswick, Macy Fawn, Daniel Bowen, Lori Bowling, Lisa Munniskma