The return of HICA in Bloom
After a break of two years we are delighted to be able to announce the return of our HICA in Bloom Competition! Before covid HICA in Bloom was an annual competition that homes from across the HICA group took part in, each home would submit their design plans and once approved, residents and staff would get together to beautify an area of their garden.
Residents and staff have loved working together to create wonderful garden displays and have greatly enjoyed the benefits that spending time outdoors has on both mental and physical health.
There is no theme to the competition this year, so staff and residents can let their imaginations run wild. Judges will be looking at how impressive the garden is, service user involvement and sustainability. Themes from earlier years have included, best floral display, best produce garden, best overall improvement and best themed garden.
Spending time outdoors and in nature has wonderful benefits, helping people to stay active and mobile and studies have shown it can provide numerous benefits for mental health as well.
Having interactive equipment in gardens is a great way to get people involved with playing in the outdoors, these can be made using natural and recycled materials.
Previous years have seen homes create sensory themed gardens, these are a wonderful way to create a sensory experience with plants providing touch, sight, taste, scent and sound stimuli. Wonderful plants for this include Lambs ears (Stachys byzantina) with its soft foliage, Lavender (Lavandula Angustifolia) for its relaxing scent, Spearmint (Mentha spicata) for is distinctive taste, Alliums are striking when planted for their visual structure and various grasses such as Greater Quaking Grass (Briza maxima) are good as a sound stimulus when a breeze blows through them.
Each home that enters receives £200 from the HICA Group’s SHINE fund, which the home can then add extra funds to if they wish. The Shine fund provides money to HICA services to help enrich the lives of service users. All money within the fund is raised entirely from fund-raising activities such as the annual Sponsored Walk, car boot sales, raffles, running marathons and many other events.
The Fund exists as part of HICA’s SHINE ideology of truly making a difference to the lives of the people we support. The ideology is an aspirational philosophy that underpins HICA’s organisational commitment to continuous improvement and a personal pledge to ‘make a difference’. Shine is a symbol of innovation, involvement and improvement that underpins everything we do. Shine encourages everyone to get involved and embrace collective responsibility, making life better for every person receiving a service from, or connected with the HICA Group.
CEO of The HICA Group, Terry said “It only takes one person to make a difference. As CEO of The HICA Group I fully support our Shine initiative which demonstrates HICA’s pledge to ‘make a difference’ and to emphasise our belief that while we are all part of a team, we are also individuals who can step forward and support one another.
Each one of us can be that person who through kind words or actions can make a difference to someone’s life. I truly believe that our teams have what it takes to make a difference to everyone we support.”
Members of the Shine board will Judge the competition in August and prizes will be donated by the Shine Fund.
