My Churchill Fellowship Destinations - Introducing Australia, Austria and Ireland

Over the last four weeks I've been busy writing up my Churchill Fellowship Report and I hope to be able to share this with you in the next couple of weeks. It's been a privilege to talk to all of the participants and learn about the research and care farms in Australia, Austria, Ireland, Israel, Italy and the USA. In this blog I would like to introduce Australia, Austria and Ireland.

In Australia I learnt about the very first care farm to be established in the country, which was set up sixteen years ago as well as more recently created care farms. I looked at how the development of a new residential therapeutic care farm model has the potential to change mental health services in the country. I explored the research being carried out at the University of Tasmania and a well established community charity for children and young people that has just moved onto a working farm. I also discovered how Animal Assisted Interventions are being considered as part of a number of these programmes.

In Austria, I gained an understanding of the six stage model that is in place to support farmers as they move through the process of setting up a care farm including training, preparing their farm, putting legal and business procedures in place, external accreditation and securing long term contracts for clients and how this approach has brought benefits to small family farms across the country. I also learnt about the academic research that has underpinned this work over recent years.

In Ireland, I was informed about Sli Eile, Ireland's first therapeutic residential care farm, and the creation of Kyrie Farm, the second such establishment in the country. I spoke with Helen Doherty from Social Farming Ireland, and Professor Jim Kinsella, University College Dublin, and discovered the history of how social care farming in Ireland has been developed since 2000 and how closely the work with Rural Support Social Farming Northern Ireland.

In my next blog I will introduce you to those I spoke with in Israel, Italy and the USA.

Photograph published by kind permission of Judy Brewer