The Horticulture Agent has been leading a weekly gardening program at the Women’s Healing Place since the Spring of 2016. The leadership of the program has undergone some changes since 2016, but since 2019 the need to develop a stronger leadership structure that is less dependent on Extension has become apparent. Starting in the winter of 2019, the Horticulture Agent and Master Gardener Volunteer began working with the garden meeting participants to develop a more sustainable leadership structure. Below is a history and outline of the process that is currently underway.

At the onset of this program in 2016, a leadership structure was developed using the Healing Place’s existing model for interpersonal and leadership development. This meant that a “garden supervisor” was voted in place by the community for a period of one month. Garden Supervisors are by their peers as a way to challenge themselves to do something that makes them uncomfortable. Once elected, the garden leader was then responsible for leading a rotating group of 10-12 women, in the OTS2 Step, through daily garden chores. The Hort Agent was responsible for coming to the center one day a week for 1.5 hours to provide a hands-on gardening lesson and help the garden supervisor learn what chores needed to be accomplished for the week. The Hort Agent worked with the garden supervisor to develop a garden binder complete with garden map and general gardening information. The garden map was updated by the garden supervisor with the help of the Hort Agent whenever items were planted or removed from the garden. 

In 2019, the Hort Agent was on maternity leave for much of the outdoor growing season and it was apparent that the gardening program would not be able to continue without weekly educational support from other community experts. A Master Gardener and the Urban Conservationist from Jefferson County Soil & Water Conservation District, took over the weekly classes at the Healing Place from June-September of 2019. During this time, employees of the Healing Place would frequently make comments to the Master Gardener and Conservationist about a need to improve the appearance of the garden. The Master Gardener and Conservationist were following the same gardening program structure that had been implemented by the Hort Agent, but it seemed that change needed to happen. Neither the Hort Agent nor Master Gardener felt that they could spend more time facilitating gardening at the Healing Place to improve the appearance so they asked for outside help.

In the fall of 2019, the Hort Agent and Master Gardener were visited by members of the Community and Leadership Development Department who had some general thoughts on how to build leadership capacity at the Healing Place in order to help the Healing Place Garden Participants create a garden that was more visually appealing and self-managing with the goal that the Hort Agent and Master Gardener could eventually decrease the frequency of their support. The Hort Agent and Master Gardener decided that starting in November of 2019, they would spend 25-30 minutes of each garden meeting to begin hosting a series of discussions with the gardening meeting about changes they wanted to see in the garden program. Both Hort Agent and Master Gardener agreed that the Healing Place needed to develop a more sustainable leadership group for the garden along with a new production plan. The Hort Agent wrote a series of questions addressing leadership development issues and the Master Gardener wrote down a list of twelve questions that focused on the production goals of the garden.

During November and December of 2019, the Gardening Group came up with ways to help “pass down” knowledge about the garden, by using skills they had learned in their recovery program. This system involved having the outgoing Garden Supervisor write down notes and meet with the up-coming Garden Supervisor to explain daily chores. The women also identified a need to gather additional input from all women in the Step 2 and OTS2 program about what to grow in the garden. They felt this would get the women invested in the garden before being a part of the gardening program while in OTS2. The women also asked if a Garden Club could be created for women in the Phase portion of recovery to help them “reach back” to their “younger (in terms of recovery process) sisters” if they were passionate about the garden. The Hort Agent plus the Garden Peer Mentor then took this idea to the Healing Place’s Program Manager who agreed to allow the formation of a Garden Club for Phase Women. The Peer Mentor was responsible for recruiting Garden Club members during the two week holiday gardening break in December.

In January of 2020, eight women in the Phase portion of recovery formed the first “Sisters Growing Garden Club” at the Healing Place. The Hort Agent and Master Gardener then facilitated a dialog with the Garden Club, the garden meeting members and Garden Supervisor, to discuss how they could support one another to expand the management capacity of the garden. The Garden Club members, identified some additional tools that would help them be more confident leaders: picture ID of plants at each life stage; permanent labeling system for rows of plants; written gardening instructions to be kept in binder about: high tunnel management, watering instructions and other items as needed. Currently the Master Gardener is working on the picture ID of plant life stages and the Garden Club members are working to developing a plant labeling system. In February 2020, the Hort Agent and Master Gardener will begin facilitating a conversation with Garden Club members and gardeners about the physical structure and goals of the garden.