Seeds of Change - Criminal Justice System (CJS)

In Spring 2025, DGS was awarded a Veterans' Foundation Major Grant, to enable further development and evaluation of this 10-week, in-prison, programme and to include DGS becoming a City and Guilds Approved Centre. DGS will be delivering Level 2 Horticulture, at HMP Maghaberry, NI and by working with the other Major Grant holders to ensure cohesive and collaborative planning, move this delivery across to Scotland.

DGS are committed to the support and progression of Veterans who have found themselves part of the Criminal Justice System and are members of the Cobseo Justice Cluster.

  • "I’ve been struggling with the fact I can’t do all the activities that they do. It frustrated me because I can’t bend down. But they adapt in an equitable way, which is handy. I fill in jobs others won’t do... stuff that I don’t need to kneel for. They’ve got high planters, 15ft long and I can weed away. Someone’s got to do it."

    —Veteran, Autumn 2024

  • "It does not matter if gardening is not your ‘thing’, it gives you time and space to work out what your ‘thing’ is."

    —Veteran, Spring 2022

  • "You can sit in a quiet area, and you’re not forced to do anything. It’s excellent. For a lot of people with mental health problems, having no pressure makes all the difference."

    —DGS Delivery Team

  • "I think the programme has caught my anxiety down already, to a 7, if the same things happen again by the end of [the programme], I will be a 3..it will be a miracle. The invisible medication. It's a distraction…it distracts me from my thoughts and makes me feel at one with nature and meeting lovely people."

    —Veteran, Spring 2024