Are you passionate about social impact, sustainability, and community wellbeing? The Askefield Project is seeking a strategic, visionary individual to join our team as Director of Strategy and Business Development.
We support people not conditions, within the natural environment of a social farm, regardless of age or circumstance, to develop confidence, self-esteem and raise their aspirations.
The Askefield Project:
- Offers a safe, supportive, and non-judgemental environment that enables individuals to feel a sense of belonging and achieve their full potential.
- Creates rewarding and meaningful opportunities to enhance the community’s health and wellbeing.
- Provides an all year round, all weather hub where members of the community can meet, learn, thrive and grow through experience.
- Works with statutory bodies, local health partners and community groups to ensure our support responds to the needs of those we work with.
We currently run Puddlers, a toddler group, a Toolshed project for all adults, a Care Farm Day for clients with diagnosed mental health conditions on personal budgets, Youth Club for young people struggling to make friends at school, Challenge Askefield which is a craft coffee morning and a Family Farm Club for all ages. We also welcome the local primary school one day a week during term time, where we run the class in accordance with the National Curriculum using the farm as the basis for the sessions. These are all run weekly. In addition to this, we run open days and events, such as The Kerry Hill, our pop-up community pub, our Christmas event and Living Nativity, Comedy Nights and Family Fun Days during the summer.
All these activities and events take place on our 13.5 acre smallholding, in our barn with commercial kitchen, craft log cabin, log cabin with interactive whiteboard, toilet block, office and reception, 72ft polytunnel, nature pond, crew building, orchard, sensory garden and animal paddocks.
We have a flock of Kerry Hill and Suffolk x sheep, a pony called Rory, a donkey called Boris, chickens, ducks, goats, a goose called Wally, a cat called Coco, guinea pigs and our most recent additions, three miniature donkeys.
We are driven by a want to deliver amazing outcomes for people, providing support, and empowering people to improve their lives and their opportunities. It is really important to us that what we do is what people want and people need, rather than what we want to do.
To find out what people wanted and needed we did the simplest thing, we asked them! What people told us is that they wanted an alternative to a traditional day centre model. They told us that they want to be developing their skills and having new experiences, not feeling restricted in a building where they are given generic opportunities to take part in, many of which they don’t want to do. People also told us that they want choice, they want to choose what they do and when they do it. And people told us that they want to feel safe and supported, learning and working with people that they like and they trust.
More generally people tell us that they enjoy what we do. People like the fact that we put on different things that they can’t get anywhere else. They like that things are done in a more fun way, and they like that we provide excellent activities and events, in a rather left field location. We love being different, and people love us for it.
Most importantly, we are a safe space for many individuals and families and this is the reason we do what we do. We are a small team, but we work exceptionally well together and everything we do has our clients' needs at heart.
