How does working at Hillcrest Branch help you?

• “Physical work and fresh air is a very good way of coping with depression and building up stamina, it’s a good way to maintain both physical welfare and mental well being. Both staff and colleagues are very supportive, encouraging and understanding. It gives me a structured week doing gardening which I enjoy. Everybody at both New Leaf and Hillcrest Branch has given me an opportunity to put something back into the society rather than being a burden, liability and failure.”
• “Working at Hillcrest helps me motivate myself, develops my social interaction with others, helps keep me physically fit and gives me an overall sense of doing something worthwhile.”
• “I like working at Hillcrest Branch, I am training to do horticultural work and learning new skills to help me learn about horticultural maintenance.”
• “It enables me to garden in a supportive environment. My health is still relatively poor but I am able to have a routine each week that gives me a purpose. Hillcrest has organised work for me that is flexible and in locations that are the most accessible for me. Overall it helps me feel that I can make a contribution to society.”
• “I am given a chance to do work I enjoy. I don’t have to be able to work lots to work here. I can be honest, I don’t have to hide that sometimes I have struggles and have struggled to work in the past.”
• “It brings me balance. I’ve found confidence to do new physically challenging work; how to be with people and how that it’s ok to ask for help and advice and it’s always available. I am more independent, functioning more ably and accepting. I look forward to being at work, in all weathers!”
• “I have got back a sense of achievement again.”

If applicable, how did the trainee programme help you?

• “It allowed me to get back to an attitude of mind that is work orientated and to learn again. Lots of things; I am useful, I can do things, I lost weight, I sleep, I have reduced my medication. I could learn to be responsible again, for me, and now for my colleagues and the company. It’s given me so much, the right thing for me at the right time. I’ve learnt new skills, opened my eyes and mind to a lot of new things.”

If possible, can you sum up your experience with Hillcrest Branch in one or two words?

• “Rewarding”
• “Life changing”
• “Supportive and understanding”
• “Re-plotting my life and tending to me”