Children and Teenagers with a wide range of difficulties including autism, anxiety, and eating disorders travel from throughout the Grampian region to be treated at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit.  The staff have been keen to develop a garden for many years as horticultural therapy and being outside in nature can assist with many aspects of mental health treatment, such as the growing of vegetable for eating disorder patients, reduction in anxiety from getting your hands in the soil, as well as low pressure environments for counselling and play therapy sessions.  Recently they have received a grant from the NHS Grampian Charity to bring this to reality with the help of Heather Dale Garden Design.  The staff and patients had plenty of great design ideas, but lacked the practical knowledge to tie them together into a cohesive design for the space available.  Heather was invited to talk to the staff to understand their requires before drawing up a final design.  Scroll down to see 3d Visualisations and explore the garden.

Donations can be made to the NHS Grampian Just Giving page by following the link below

NHS Grampian Charity - JustGiving

https://www.justgiving.com/NHSgrampianCharity

In the message box be sure to indicate the donation is for - NER11476  CAMHS Garden

The garden will be formed of several areas, a waiting area, veg growing and quiet area, play therapy area and staff area. Details of each area are below.

The waiting area is easily accessible and near the entrance of the building to provide space for patients to decompress after possibly long and confined travel to CAMHS.  Plenty of plants to provide a natural sound barrier between building and a restful ambience. 

The multistem tree at the centre of the area provides privacy for each of the waiting benches, with wooden fencing to screen nearby roads and provide enclosure and a feeling of security.

This area is to provide space for consultations and quiet activity which allows discussion of difficult topics, for example tending vegetables with eating disorder patients.  The area also includes seating which is close but does not require eye contact.

This space is narrow between the building and the boundary wall, it was important to provide privacy for the consulting rooms inside the building as well as those outside.

This area attempts to create a aplay area similar to a woodland using natural materials such as stumps for climbing, sticks for building dens and pine cones to use in a myriad of imaginary games.  A project will be set up for local primary schools to collect pine cones to donate to the garden raising awareness of the service in the wider community. The space includes an area of lawn for practitioners to bring out toys to explore with children in play therapy.  Planting beds are carefully located to provide maximum screening of office windows, some separation between the play area and quiet area to make both a more comfortable spaces and allow separate activities to run concurrently without interfering with each other.  The siting of the borders also subtly encloses the play area. The planting in the borders has also been carefully considered to have differing textures and smells to provide interesting sensory experiences.

The staff area is enclosed by a Rosa rugosa hedge providing separation and privacy for staff and patients passing to reach the play area. Seating areas are provided in the sun and shade, with planting to soften the walls and provide interest.

Donations can be made to the NHS Grampian Just Giving page by following the link below

NHS Grampian Charity - JustGiving

https://www.justgiving.com/NHSgrampianCharity

In the message box be sure to indicate the donation is for - NER11476  CAMHS Garden