This week on my Instagram account, I’ve been talking all about the benefits of gardening for kids. I grew up with a mom who loved to garden, so I have lots of fond memories of picking strawberries off of the bush, making snapdragons talk and walking barefoot in the dirt.
When lockdowns and stay at home orders hit this past year, what did we see filling our newsfeeds? For my part, I saw a lot of sourdough bread starters and a lot of people talking about starting to garden! People were seeking out or returning to former occupations, which we know can help our ability to self regulate. Whether is was because we had more time than we knew what to do with at home or because we inherently knew that working with our hands has a host of benefits to our mental health, I think there was a large uptick in interest in gardening this past year.
This study was interesting because it looked at how students participating in a “healing garden” class improved in markers of vocational readiness.
Journal Journal of People, Plants and Environment
Article Title: The Effects of a Healing Garden Program based on Vocational Adaptation on Career Attitude for College Students with Developmental Disabilities
- 1A Systematic review of homogeneous RCTs
- 1B Well-designed individual RCT
- 2A Systematic review of cohort studies
- 2B Individual prospective cohort study, low quality RCT, ecological studies; and two-group, non-randomized studies
- 3A Systematic review of case control studies
- 3B Individual retrospective case-control studies; one-group, non-randomized pre-post test study; cohort studies
- 4 Case series (and low-quality cohort and case control study)
- 5 Expert opinion without explicit critical appraisal
Methods Twenty five college students with developmental disabilities participated in a Healing Garden class which incorporated principles of vocational adaptation to promote skills required for vocation participation. Thirty students in the control group took general courses that were based on the theory of vocational adaptation.
Students in both groups completed the Career Attitude Measurement Tool before and after the study. The study author used this as a measure for the students’ current attitudes toward careers.
Findings
Students in both the control and experimental group demonstrated significant increases for the areas of confidence and independence.
Only students in the healing garden group demonstrated significantly increased measures of finality, preparation, and determination.
Reference
Kim, S.Y. (2020). The Effects of a Healing Garden Program based on Vocational Adaptation on Career Attitude for College Students with Developmental Disabilities. Journal of People, Plants and Environment, Vol. 23 No. 1: 77-85. https://doi.org/10.11628/ksppe.2020.23.1.77
