By Mikayla van Loon
From the humble backyard of Kilsyth to one of the biggest garden shows in the world, Valley Care entered the realm of landscape design with tremendous gusto.
Displaying for the first time at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show (MIFGS) in March, the overwhelmingly positive response at the event and post has been incredibly empowering for the workers, many who have a disability.
General manager Brad Giraud said while the reward of being able to exhibit at MIFGS was enough on its own, seeing the growth, benefit and encouragement it gave the workers was above anything else.
“Being at the show, being part of the industry looking around and seeing all these designers without disabilities, and they could still be part of it was a huge win for them and they want to do it every year,” he said.
Creating a border garden, taking inspiration from stimming behaviours, the act of repetitive motions to calm the body and mind, developed into the idea of a grass covered chair – described by support worker Erin McLaine as a giant hug.
“The boys who work with us, it’s a lot of sensories [that are triggers] so for them it can be smell, touch, sounds and they can do something called stimming, they’ll just go away somewhere, so you try to bring them back and for me, it’s always feet in the grass, it just makes you feel calm and grounded,” Erin said.
“I thought ‘imagine if it was a chair where you could sit and relax in and feel safe’. It feels like it’s hugging you. That was that calm amongst the chaos around it.”
Brad said “the best part of it, it was designed by guys with autism” with Erin adding that throughout the process they became much more focused on plant alignment, position and structure which was, for her, a sign of growth.
“The plant selection, taking them plant shopping, there was five boys and they had to learn to respect a budget and seasons and what the plants would require and how they would grow. So it was a big learning curve,” Erin said.
Always hoping to spread the message that people with disabilities can work and provide the same quality that someone without a disability can, Brad said he was amazed at how many conversations were had because the chair was a focal point.
“The chair was the message…we wanted to tell Valley Care’s story and show that other businesses could do this model and employ people with disabilities and empower them,” he said.
“The magic of it is in challenging these guys as much as possible, and supporting them from underneath. Not supervising or watching over them, just raising them up.”
Despite the challenges that did come with displaying at MIFGS, like keeping the chair growing and thriving, Brad said now the team just wants to achieve more for the next one.
“It’s going to be something bigger and better. I’m never quite satisfied with just one garden, although I should be, it was a great achievement but I kind of think let’s go again and show them what we can do.”
For those who missed MIFGS, the chair and the garden will become an integrated part of the Japara Bridge sensory garden, something Brad said will be “a very nice memento from the show”.
