Presented at: The National School Gardening Symposium
July 11, 2002
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Presenter:
Gene Rothert
Manager, Horticultural Therapy Services
Chicago Botanic Garden
1000 Lake Cook Rd.
Glencoe, IL 60022
grothert@chicagobotanic.org
Abstract:
Many school garden developers and leaders are being challenged to include children with disabilities. For participation in school garden activities to be successful and meaningful for students with disabilities that impair functional mobility, a clear understanding of disabilities and abilities of everyone who will experience the garden is essential. Easy to use patient assessment tools developed by therapists can be used to compile necessary functional data about the students who will use the garden. Equipped with these tools and the critical information gathered about the participants, the garden leader can make wiser design, tool and equipment choices for students representing a wide range of disabilities at any age or stage of development. Lower functioning students who may use manual or power wheelchairs, walkers or crutches will require particular attention to paving that provides safe access to, from and around the garden. Also important is adapting the garden with carefully selected containers, raised beds and vertical gardening techniques that position growing areas within easy reach. Adapting the gardeners with appropriate tools that maximize abilities and protect weakened joints and muscles is also essential. The right combination of garden and tool adaptations will encourage full and safe participation to the greatest extent possible. These strategies were used by the Chicago Botanic Garden Horticultural Therapy Services program to successfully install and program gardens at Shriner’s Hospital for Children and a Chicago public school, the Blair Early Childhood Development Center as examples of spaces used for rehabilitative and educational outcomes.
Good morning. I am Gene Rothert and I have managed the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Horticultural Therapy (HTS) program since 1978. We use plants, gardening and natural environments to improve human health and well-being. A large part of what we do is provide contracted staff training services to regional health care and human service agencies serving people with disabilities, older adults and individuals recovering from illness. These programs are adapted to the functional levels and interests of the participants and planned to achieve therapeutic outcomes such as physical, psychosocial, vocational, educational and leisure - simply providing the opportunity for safe, comfortable gardening experiences for people who are unable to garden in the traditional in-ground down on your hands and knees way. These sites frequently include children’s hospitals, school special education classrooms and other agencies serving children with disabling conditions from preschool through high school age. We have also been very fortunate to have had a barrier-free or Enabling Garden demonstration on our grounds throughout our history. In July of 1999 we opened the newly updated version that reflects the latest in barrier-free garden design. In the Enabling Garden and through our outreach training program we have learned a great deal about adapting gardens and associated programming to accommodate most anyone of any ability at any stage of life. Invaluable to these experiences are the many therapists and teachers with whom we have worked over the years but more importantly the thousands of gardeners with disabilities who are the real masters of adaptation.
For 15 years of my career here I also managed the Garden’s Urban Horticulture programs that included the community gardening initiative which provided a variety of educational programs, design and material support to Chicago’s urban gardeners. About a third of these gardens in any year were at schools, community based after school programs, churches, social service agencies, serving children. Many of these either serve kids with disabilities solely or, in the last decade with ADA, have adopted mainstreaming or inclusion programs that welcome kids with disabilities. We are clearly seeing an increase in these programs particularly in the public and private school systems along with, thankfully, a surge in the recognition and adoption of gardens and surrounding landscapes as valuable teaching, learning and experiential venues for students. However these gardens are seldom designed or equipped to accommodate kids with disabilities that impair functional mobility. Frequently we encounter teachers/garden leaders agonizing over this issue who intensely want to do the right thing but do not know how or where to turn for help.
Today I will focus on some simple tools developed and used by therapists to assess patient functional abilities. The information gathered from this process will help guide you towards better garden design and equipment choices when safely and meaningfully welcoming kids with mobility impairments to your school gardens. The challenges are greater with them as opposed to those students with cognitive or behavioral issues. Generally these groups require adaptations to programming rather than the garden to enable them to successfully access the experience. I will further narrow the field within the broad category of kids with disabilities that impair mobility to those with significantly impaired mobility – those kids who are not able to walk unaided or with impaired coordination and balance including manual or power wheelchair and scooter walker and crutch users. If you are able to engage children in this lower functioning group into your school gardens, working with higher functioning students, whose conditions do not impair mobility as significantly, will be that much easier. As functional abilities improve fewer adaptations are necessary.
When creating a barrier free section within and access to, from and around in the school garden three areas need to be considered. First, adapt the garden using appropriate paving, containers, raised beds and vertical gardening techniques that position plants and growing areas within comfortable reach. Second, adapting the gardeners themselves with specialized tools and techniques that maximize independence and protect the abilities they have and; third, adapting the plant material to consider things like unique sensory qualities, those that produce materials useful for other activities or dermal and oral toxicity. Although in my experience if you do a good job on the first two the same plant palette used in any school garden is perfectly fine although shorter varieties may be necessary to keep them within reach when planted in raised beds or larger containers.
To make good decisions about what to adapt, how and what with the first and most crucial first step when planning an enabling school garden is a clear understanding of the functional abilities of the students who will use it. It is almost impossible to be prescriptive when accommodating kids with disabilities in the garden without an assessment of their functional abilities. When I get calls asking what to do I too begin to agonize because I lack enough knowledge about the gardeners in question, the site and program goals to give sound advice. This is because children like adults come in a near infinite range of shapes, sizes and abilities and these qualities change at an alarming rate even under normal circumstances. Layer on a disability and these variables greatly increase with new issues like what is the disability(s)? Are there gradations within a given diagnosis and its impact(s) on functional mobility? In other words not all children with Cerebral Palsy use wheelchairs nor do all wheelchair using kids function alike given variability in upper body strength and the speed of some of these newer power chairs! That is why the best information I can offer you today emphasizes strategies that equip you accumulate information about the limitations and abilities of the gardeners you may encounter whatever they may be. Armed with this data, you will be much better equipped to create the space yourself or to use/communicate with any design assistance you may have. This will result in a design that maximizes independence in the garden for the students to the greatest extent possible. Essential to the process of gathering functional information about the kids, if you are an “outsider”, are the teachers, therapists and other support staff (including parents if possible) working with them at school and of course, the potential gardeners themselves. Spend time with them and the kids and observe as they go about their daily activities. They will also have important knowledge about any medical precautions that may need to be taken into consideration. You may want to contact a Horticultural Therapist in your area or one of a growing number of Landscape Architects and garden designers who are familiar with therapeutic/enabling garden design. As an “insider” working in the school with the students with disabilities you are in the best position to understand their abilities and needs. In addition to the exercises below, another good way to gain functional data is to play “Simon Says”. It allows you to have some control over the body positions used and can be very revealing. The following information must be gathered for all the kids who will use the space:
1. Research & Preparation
This spring the above strategies above were successfully used to establish gardens at Shriner’s Hospital for Children and The Blair Early Childhood Development Center, a public school, both in Chicago. In both settings collectively children with any number of disabilities and/or illnesses over a wide age span are engaged in the programs there. In both locations programs are designed for therapeutic and educational, social and recreational outcomes. Inexpensive containers, raised beds and vertical gardening techniques of varying sizes and heights were arranged on existing paved areas providing a range of users safe, comfortable gardening experiences. Both gardens and associated programs are fully integrated into the agency’s educational, therapeutic and recreational goals.
As a school garden leader welcoming children with disabilities, it is crucial to thoroughly understand the abilities as well as the limitations of the students who will use the space. These exercises will not by any means make you a therapist but using the uncomplicated strategies above will provide the foundation to make good design, tool and technique choices that will enable you to be successful. Also try to visit a nearby horticultural therapy program serving children for ideas and counsel from the staff. Contact the American Horticultural Therapy Association at www.ahta.org for a nearby horticultural therapist or program location. There is a selection of useful publications available through the mail from the Chicago Botanic Garden Horticultural Therapy services program that will help you design, equip and program a barrier free garden or start a horticultural therapy program. These can be accessed through the Horticultural Therapy pages in the Education Department at www.chicagobotanic.org. A number of publications and resources are listed in the handout.
Finally remember that children with disabilities are just kids with disabilities. Remove a few barriers, get out of the way and you will find the experience as rewarding as will the gardeners.
July 11, 2002
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Presenter:
Gene Rothert
Manager, Horticultural Therapy Services
Chicago Botanic Garden
1000 Lake Cook Rd.
Glencoe, IL 60022
grothert@chicagobotanic.org
Abstract:
Many school garden developers and leaders are being challenged to include children with disabilities. For participation in school garden activities to be successful and meaningful for students with disabilities that impair functional mobility, a clear understanding of disabilities and abilities of everyone who will experience the garden is essential. Easy to use patient assessment tools developed by therapists can be used to compile necessary functional data about the students who will use the garden. Equipped with these tools and the critical information gathered about the participants, the garden leader can make wiser design, tool and equipment choices for students representing a wide range of disabilities at any age or stage of development. Lower functioning students who may use manual or power wheelchairs, walkers or crutches will require particular attention to paving that provides safe access to, from and around the garden. Also important is adapting the garden with carefully selected containers, raised beds and vertical gardening techniques that position growing areas within easy reach. Adapting the gardeners with appropriate tools that maximize abilities and protect weakened joints and muscles is also essential. The right combination of garden and tool adaptations will encourage full and safe participation to the greatest extent possible. These strategies were used by the Chicago Botanic Garden Horticultural Therapy Services program to successfully install and program gardens at Shriner’s Hospital for Children and a Chicago public school, the Blair Early Childhood Development Center as examples of spaces used for rehabilitative and educational outcomes.
Good morning. I am Gene Rothert and I have managed the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Horticultural Therapy (HTS) program since 1978. We use plants, gardening and natural environments to improve human health and well-being. A large part of what we do is provide contracted staff training services to regional health care and human service agencies serving people with disabilities, older adults and individuals recovering from illness. These programs are adapted to the functional levels and interests of the participants and planned to achieve therapeutic outcomes such as physical, psychosocial, vocational, educational and leisure - simply providing the opportunity for safe, comfortable gardening experiences for people who are unable to garden in the traditional in-ground down on your hands and knees way. These sites frequently include children’s hospitals, school special education classrooms and other agencies serving children with disabling conditions from preschool through high school age. We have also been very fortunate to have had a barrier-free or Enabling Garden demonstration on our grounds throughout our history. In July of 1999 we opened the newly updated version that reflects the latest in barrier-free garden design. In the Enabling Garden and through our outreach training program we have learned a great deal about adapting gardens and associated programming to accommodate most anyone of any ability at any stage of life. Invaluable to these experiences are the many therapists and teachers with whom we have worked over the years but more importantly the thousands of gardeners with disabilities who are the real masters of adaptation.
For 15 years of my career here I also managed the Garden’s Urban Horticulture programs that included the community gardening initiative which provided a variety of educational programs, design and material support to Chicago’s urban gardeners. About a third of these gardens in any year were at schools, community based after school programs, churches, social service agencies, serving children. Many of these either serve kids with disabilities solely or, in the last decade with ADA, have adopted mainstreaming or inclusion programs that welcome kids with disabilities. We are clearly seeing an increase in these programs particularly in the public and private school systems along with, thankfully, a surge in the recognition and adoption of gardens and surrounding landscapes as valuable teaching, learning and experiential venues for students. However these gardens are seldom designed or equipped to accommodate kids with disabilities that impair functional mobility. Frequently we encounter teachers/garden leaders agonizing over this issue who intensely want to do the right thing but do not know how or where to turn for help.
Today I will focus on some simple tools developed and used by therapists to assess patient functional abilities. The information gathered from this process will help guide you towards better garden design and equipment choices when safely and meaningfully welcoming kids with mobility impairments to your school gardens. The challenges are greater with them as opposed to those students with cognitive or behavioral issues. Generally these groups require adaptations to programming rather than the garden to enable them to successfully access the experience. I will further narrow the field within the broad category of kids with disabilities that impair mobility to those with significantly impaired mobility – those kids who are not able to walk unaided or with impaired coordination and balance including manual or power wheelchair and scooter walker and crutch users. If you are able to engage children in this lower functioning group into your school gardens, working with higher functioning students, whose conditions do not impair mobility as significantly, will be that much easier. As functional abilities improve fewer adaptations are necessary.
When creating a barrier free section within and access to, from and around in the school garden three areas need to be considered. First, adapt the garden using appropriate paving, containers, raised beds and vertical gardening techniques that position plants and growing areas within comfortable reach. Second, adapting the gardeners themselves with specialized tools and techniques that maximize independence and protect the abilities they have and; third, adapting the plant material to consider things like unique sensory qualities, those that produce materials useful for other activities or dermal and oral toxicity. Although in my experience if you do a good job on the first two the same plant palette used in any school garden is perfectly fine although shorter varieties may be necessary to keep them within reach when planted in raised beds or larger containers.
To make good decisions about what to adapt, how and what with the first and most crucial first step when planning an enabling school garden is a clear understanding of the functional abilities of the students who will use it. It is almost impossible to be prescriptive when accommodating kids with disabilities in the garden without an assessment of their functional abilities. When I get calls asking what to do I too begin to agonize because I lack enough knowledge about the gardeners in question, the site and program goals to give sound advice. This is because children like adults come in a near infinite range of shapes, sizes and abilities and these qualities change at an alarming rate even under normal circumstances. Layer on a disability and these variables greatly increase with new issues like what is the disability(s)? Are there gradations within a given diagnosis and its impact(s) on functional mobility? In other words not all children with Cerebral Palsy use wheelchairs nor do all wheelchair using kids function alike given variability in upper body strength and the speed of some of these newer power chairs! That is why the best information I can offer you today emphasizes strategies that equip you accumulate information about the limitations and abilities of the gardeners you may encounter whatever they may be. Armed with this data, you will be much better equipped to create the space yourself or to use/communicate with any design assistance you may have. This will result in a design that maximizes independence in the garden for the students to the greatest extent possible. Essential to the process of gathering functional information about the kids, if you are an “outsider”, are the teachers, therapists and other support staff (including parents if possible) working with them at school and of course, the potential gardeners themselves. Spend time with them and the kids and observe as they go about their daily activities. They will also have important knowledge about any medical precautions that may need to be taken into consideration. You may want to contact a Horticultural Therapist in your area or one of a growing number of Landscape Architects and garden designers who are familiar with therapeutic/enabling garden design. As an “insider” working in the school with the students with disabilities you are in the best position to understand their abilities and needs. In addition to the exercises below, another good way to gain functional data is to play “Simon Says”. It allows you to have some control over the body positions used and can be very revealing. The following information must be gathered for all the kids who will use the space:
1. Research & Preparation
|
This spring the above strategies above were successfully used to establish gardens at Shriner’s Hospital for Children and The Blair Early Childhood Development Center, a public school, both in Chicago. In both settings collectively children with any number of disabilities and/or illnesses over a wide age span are engaged in the programs there. In both locations programs are designed for therapeutic and educational, social and recreational outcomes. Inexpensive containers, raised beds and vertical gardening techniques of varying sizes and heights were arranged on existing paved areas providing a range of users safe, comfortable gardening experiences. Both gardens and associated programs are fully integrated into the agency’s educational, therapeutic and recreational goals.
As a school garden leader welcoming children with disabilities, it is crucial to thoroughly understand the abilities as well as the limitations of the students who will use the space. These exercises will not by any means make you a therapist but using the uncomplicated strategies above will provide the foundation to make good design, tool and technique choices that will enable you to be successful. Also try to visit a nearby horticultural therapy program serving children for ideas and counsel from the staff. Contact the American Horticultural Therapy Association at www.ahta.org for a nearby horticultural therapist or program location. There is a selection of useful publications available through the mail from the Chicago Botanic Garden Horticultural Therapy services program that will help you design, equip and program a barrier free garden or start a horticultural therapy program. These can be accessed through the Horticultural Therapy pages in the Education Department at www.chicagobotanic.org. A number of publications and resources are listed in the handout.
Finally remember that children with disabilities are just kids with disabilities. Remove a few barriers, get out of the way and you will find the experience as rewarding as will the gardeners.
