Cultivating Mental Health in NHS Primary Care - Emma Martindale & Helen Foulkes

Emma Martindale is Training and Standards Officer at Trellis. With a background in ecology, horticulture and social work, she has experience across community gardening, frontline social work, horticultural and community settings. Emma develops and delivers therapeutic horticulture programmes and training, including Scotland’s first accredited practitioner-level training in therapeutic horticulture. She also works with colleagues develop and launch the UK Association for Social and Therapeutic Horticulture and its practitioner register.  Alongside Trellis, Emma runs Nature on the Mind, providing therapeutic horticulture sessions, wildlife-friendly gardening services, and garden coaching - supporting individuals to gain skills and confidence in gardening. Her work brings together people, plants and nature to support wellbeing.

After previously working in the NHS and MOD  as a RGN nurse a change in career took me from working in Occupational Health and GP practice nursing to horticulture. Wanting to carry on a caring role and utilising my occupational health skills but in a different field I obtained my RHS qualifications with the Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh and Horticultural Therapy Awards with Thrive. I have had to move frequently and have worked in many different settings as my husband is a serving military officer in the British Army . Before my last move to the Scottish Boarders I worked for 3 years designing and  providing  social therapeutic horticulture sessions  to secondary school students with SEN in a specialist school setting. I have also worked with Military Veterans and private clients in a variety of gardens through out the country and have been fortunate recently to facilitate a Mental Health Awareness CPD day and a 12 week STH course for Trellis .