About the assignment

The assignment task

***NB*** The intervention can be of any form (i.e. it does not have to be an app or other “hi-tech” solution), so long as it meets the key criteria:

1. It must be the product of collaboration within your group – not just describing and evaluating a ready-made, unmodified/unadapted intervention, which is already available.
   • For example, Alison Digney’s assignment in 2015 was based on Google Glass – but she clearly considered how this tool could be adapted to work with her proposed service-users.
2. It must have one or more clear and relevant aims (education, health-promotion, therapy).
3. It must have a clear play/game basis.
4. It must use natural resources and/or media.
5. The focus of the intervention will be based on an area of practice that has been agreed with me.
   • Whilst it is most likely that your intervention will be based on young people such as those from Riverbank Academy, this is not essential. If your group feels strongly that they would like to consider an intervention for a markedly different group, please do discuss further with me.
6. It must draw clearly on relevant theory and research (rather than simply being something that you feel will be beneficial).
7. You ensure that you evaluate the intervention you design, through the Coventry Domains collaborative space I have provided for that purpose (see below).

The practical emphasis of the assignment refects the fact that the focus of the module is primarily on clinical/educational practice and allows you to demonstrate to others (not just the University) that you are able to apply theory and core skills relevant to social/therapeutic horticulture, in order to:

1. Develop effective strategies for the use of natural resources and media as the basis for enhancing the health, performance and/or participation of specific individuals or communities, based on the best available contemporary research evidence
2. Create innovative interventions to optimise specified clinical or educational outcomes, employing systematically graded and adapted nature-assisted activities
3. Generate coherent courses of action to optimise the sustainability of service delivery in the workplace

Method of submission

Although the assignment is the development of an intervention, the presentation of this intervention does have to be in the form of a website. There are several reasons for this:

1. As you are not full-time students at the University, and are geographically dispersed, a website is an efficient way of ensuring that you can collaborate on the assignment whenver and wherever you wish, rather than having to schedule regular face-to-face meetings.
2. An online space allows you the opportunity to incorporate a much wider range of resources to support you in describing, justifying and evalauting your intervention strategy (e.g. using images and videos; embedding PowerPoint presentations and other documents)
3. It provides an opportunity for you to market your abilities:
   • Staff at Riverbank Academy will be notified of your finished product, and will be encouraged to use it and give you further feedback thereafter.
   • Hopefully, you will be able to utilise the intervention you develop in your own practice, rather than it being simly an academic exercise – allowing peers and employers to gain a better idea of the value of your area of practice
   • The intervention should be a resource that you can use to support future job-applications, etc.
   • The website will be viewable by the public, allowing you even more opportunity to promote your knowledge and skills more widely.
     • ***NB*** No marks or feedback from the module team will be placed directly onto the site – it is only your work that will be seen.
4. We have an opportunity to mark you individually, but give feedback on your collaborative abilities, too (as with group-based presentations, etc).
5. It allows more flexibility with regard to the type of intervention and target-group you are able to choose. In some cases, you will be able to gain feedback on a ‘finished’ intervention from the Riverbank Academy group in the last session before the Easter break; some may find their intervention is still a “work in progress” at that point, or that they are unable to demonstrate its full scope in the time available; and others may wish to develop an intervention for a different target-group or environment. Therefore, to ensure parity in assessment, the practical session will not be used directly as part of your assessment (although it will give you more opportunity to evaluate your intervention with your peers and the Riverbank Academy group).

More about the assignment

I plan to incorporate additional ideas about how to begin the process of designing your intervention, and how to structure your website to optimise its effectiveness, in coming weeks. Therefore, please do make sure you check in regularly!