Five Reasons Why Considering Special Populations Might be Right for Your Farm Based Education Program

Many farm related businesses and educational outreach programs focus on as broad an audience as possible. Goals range from bringing in additional income, to effectively serving a wide community, or to implement an advocacy driven agricultural mission for as many people as possible.

Yet people with physical, cognitive or psycho/social disabilities frequently are overlooked as a potential core audience and may even be intimidating to some groups who otherwise look for creative outreach possibilities. Yet hands-on contact with the land, immersion in agriculture, introduction to healthy food and familiarity with the enriching environment offered on farms can be amazingly powerful for individuals who already face challenges in their lives.

So what might be the five top reasons to consider opening your farm based education program to audiences with special needs?

1. We are all “special”: Most of all people with disabilities want to participate in all facets of community life. One can’t “gloss over” the real limitations people with disabilities can face. Yet individuals who live with a disability do not want to be pitied, to be excused from rising up to challenges and they also do not want to be idealized when they achieve. Above all people are people – with the same needs and expectations of what living entails. A wisdom sometimes expressed by persons who live with disability, is that all “healthy” people are only “currently able”. They correctly point out that in the course of a lifetime, most people will at some point have a disability. Additionally it is helpful to view disability and special need as a continuum. Rather than relegating people with special needs as a separate group “over there”, it helps to visualize that these are our sisters, mothers, uncles, children, cousins and family members. Few do not have a person with autism, multiple sclerosis, cancer, Alzheimer’s or some other special need in their life. Approaching it in this vein demystifies this audience and integrates them into the fabric of greater society in our minds eye. The farm and farm based education program that understand that will have no trouble making the leap to serving the broadest possible audience.

2. Additional Income: Contractually connecting with a special education school, with a vocational program geared to individuals with special needs or by pairing with a professional therapist who serves clients, a farm based education program can cultivate money that they previously where not considering. By proactively advocating for the benefits the farm environment (physical, emotional, vocational, psychological and even spiritual) can have for participants, you might convince local hospitals, schools, churches, clinics, community based service programs or private clinicians to collaborate and affiliate with you in a fee-for-service arrangement. In the case of a non-profit charitable organization, donations and grants can be secured to support and underwrite this kind of work. This can be a viable and realistic revenue addition to explore.

3. It’s a Win/Win: By being inclusive and serving populations with special needs in an enthusiastic, creative and proactive way your farm business or farm education program can create an even more progressive and positive community profile. The special needs populations who come to your farm gain life skills, can contribute positively toward your cause, can learn from you and through being there enrich the environment for everyone. Local and regional media seek to report on how individuals with special needs succeed and participate in the community and through this innovative outreach your organization will benefit. By being an advocate and effective service provider for populations with disabilities or special needs, your farm business will grow in reputation and your products and offerings will reach an even larger audience.
   

4. It Makes You Better:  Your creativity will be challenged to serve audiences who have mobility issues, who may have cognitive challenges, who are visually/hearing impaired or who have chronic illness in their lives. You, your staff, your entire farm team will need to stretch, to think and to create ways to make your mission, your agricultural product, your educational service relevant to new audiences. When you start looking at your facility and your work through fresh eyes, you start to envision broad and impactful changes that can help to elevate your entire mission or business plan.

5. It’s the Right Thing to Do: Since the passing of the American With Disabilities Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990 , over twenty years of progress have shifted public opinion from having people with disabilities hidden on the sidelines of life, to including them in the mainstream. In every walk of life, the ADA has made inroads and guarantees individuals with special needs access to things most able bodied people take for granted. It provides regulations on fair housing, on employment, on accessibility to public spaces and public services. This is the law and has become a way of thinking. Farm based education programs and farm businesses are not exempted from this. Any program that serves people, must serve all people – including those who may use wheelchairs, who might walk with a service animal, who may have cognitive deficits or who may be visually impaired. Sometimes one may need to adapt a facility, may need to adjust an education program or train staff to meet the needs of different audiences, but doing so is not just the law, it is the right thing to do.

How to get started? Explore the following resources for outreach ideas and also do local research to find community contacts that can connect you with various audiences and provide you with creative ideas.

Ability Beyond Disability   http://www.abilitybeyonddisability.org/who-we-are/our-history
United Cerebral Palsy  http://www.ucp.org/about
Autism Speaks http://www.autismspeaks.org
American Cancer Society http://www.cancer.org
National Down Syndrome Society http://ndss.org
Special Olympics http://www.specialolympics.org
National Council for Recreational Therapy Certification http://www.nctrc.org

Michael E. Kaufmann
Director
Green Chimneys Farm and Wildlife Center/Sam and Myra Ross Institute*
Brewster, NY 10509
mkaufmann@greenchimneys.org
Telephone (845) 279-2995 Ext:170
www.greenchimneys.org