If you are over the age of 18 and have learning disabilities, with or without autism, you might like to try co-farming with us. Our daily sessions include a rich variety of outdoor, purposeful activities in animal husbandry, horticulture and seasonal tasks that offer people meaningful occupation, opportunities to improve physical health and well-being, and the chance to be an important part of a productive and welcoming community.
Co-farmers come to the farm for day sessions from 10 am until 4 pm or for shorter days to suit their needs within those hours. FarmAbility is open 50 weeks in the year, whatever the weather, offering seasonal activity choices, goal-directed learning opportunities, an appropriate level of enabling support and a ‘can do’ attitude – all this while having fun too!
Co-farming at FarmAbility is a fantastic way to find out all the things you can do.
What makes FarmAbility special?
We believe there are three aspects that make FarmAbility special:
- We care about what we do and we love what we do! Furthermore, the FarmAbility team – from programme leaders to volunteers to office staff to trustees – are all strongly committed to developing a more inclusive society and to enabling co-farmers to succeed.
- We don’t stop learning: we are continually reviewing our progress, exploring new enabling strategies and challenging our practice – we want to do the best we can.
- ‘Community’ is an important word and concept at FarmAbility. Developing and nurturing a thriving community on our farm and elsewhere is at the heart of what we do – and ensuring that our community is inclusive and welcoming is vital.
Becoming a co-farmer
We welcome new co-farmers throughout the year to available places. If people are interested in becoming a co-farmer, they generally first attend a free taster session to get to know us and the farm, before having a more in-depth discussion about their interests, abilities and needs. For information about becoming a co-farmer, please contact us.
Co-farmers contribute to the cost of FarmAbility day sessions through their Personal Budgets. We have a Bursary Fund for co-farmers who couldn’t otherwise attend FarmAbility. Please contact us for more information.
At the moment we aren’t able to work with anyone under the age of 18 as an independent participant but we do also work with post 16 education settings to welcome groups of students aged 16-19 as co-farmers during term time.