Garden Route Therapy

Congratulations to everyone involved in making the Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association (CHTA) Annual Conference happen!  It was hugely successful, an impressive showcase of horticultural therapy activities in Alberta and a major accomplishment to have the conference outside Ontario for the first time.  The event was very professionally hosted by the Calgary Zoo and Botanical Gardens and featured an inspiring key note address from Gwenn Fried of the Glass Garden at the Rusk Institute in New York.  The conference provided the wonderful and rare opportunity to meet with people from across Canada who also have a passion for Horticultural Therapy.

I had the opportunity to present with Christine Pollard the HT 101 and HT 102 workshops, designed for those new to Horticultural Therapy (HT) to get an introduction to the profession, where it is practiced and educational opportunities.  I spoke specifically about my own journey as a student working towards professional registration with the CHTA and touched on my experiences with the Home Farm Horticultural Therapy Certificate, volunteering with the Julien Project and my six month internship at Providence Farm.  I was pleased to find out afterwards that there were in fact a number of people at the conference who were looking to get started with their HT education and found the information provided very useful.  

The two day conference had a theme of “Building Connections in Horticultural Therapy” and saw presentations delivered by art therapists, music therapists, physiotherapist, recreation therapists, labyrinth facilitators, horticulturalists and landscape architects.

During the conference, the CHTA held its Annual General Meeting for members.  I was nominated for the position of Education Coordinator on the CHTA Board and officially joined at this time.  My focus will be to get Education Guidelines approved before 2009, which I believe is critical to building the credibility of our organization.  I look forward to working together with the Education Committee and Board of Directors to come to agreement on something we can all promote and be proud of.  Feedback from those invested in horticultural therapy in Canada is always welcomed.