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A housing association identified two families who had been through a period of some difficulty and as a consequence received antisocial behaviour orders against them.

Given that both family groups had worked well with support staff to improve their situation it was felt that there could be real merit in working with the families to improve their respective outdoor spaces. This was seen as both an incentive to the families and as a means of improving the neighbourhood in which the families were located. The families were required to be actively involved in the design and implementation of the garden and the work was to be carried out over a period of months rather than days. In this way it was hoped that the participants would develop a different relationship with their garden and having been actively involved in the creation of the garden would be more likely to keep up with the maintenance.

The garden was in a state of some disrepair but the family were really keen to turn things round. Once the garden had been cleared the back of the house was repainted.

The family, particularly the father was very keen to be actively involved in both the decision making and the practical work and it would not be going too far to say that the entire success of the project depended on the degree to which the family would be able to engage with the process and take ownership of the garden as it was being built. If the project was to be a success then by the time the project was completed it should be the family that had built the garden with support and not the family supporting the gardener.

The family were actively involved in clearing the garden and redesigning the lawn and decking area and became increasingly motivated and involved as the project progressed. Because of the commitment shown by the family the project was extended to provide on going guidance and a few more plants as the season went on.

“The real breakthrough came when on returning to the garden on the Sunday morning, I found that the family had been up bright and early and laid all the turf in the back garden!”

If participants are well selected the neighbourhood Project could possibly engender positive change in the participants attitude to their garden. It should be stressed however that there would continue to be many challenges to the household once the project had completed, not least the way the family used the garden.

“The first thing that happened once we finished the decking area was that all the neighbourhood’s kids came round and started using it as a wrestling ring!”

In this kind of situation their does seem to be a issue regarding a sense of ownership and of responsibility for the space and to some degree one of the most important thing done was to fit a gate to the garden so that the head of the house could start to control how the garden was used.

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