A 34-year-old mental health charity based in Dorset has changed its name.
The Sheltered Work Opportunities Project, which was set up in 1990 to offer rehabilitation services to adults with mental illnesses, changed its name this month to Plants and Minds.
Plants and Minds, which runs two local plant nurseries Cherry Tree Nursery in Northbourne and Chestnut Nursery in Poole, said it hoped the new name would better explain what the charity does.
Data for the financial year ending 31 January 2023, published by the Charity Commission, puts the charity’s total income at £754,000 and total expenditure at £831,000.
Maria Tidy, community liaison officer at Plants and Minds, said: “We provide therapeutic horticulture activities to our volunteers and although the Sheltered Work Opportunities Project explained that to some extent it was more often used as its acronym, SWOP, which didn’t explain what we do by itself.
“And of course, for the majority of the public, we’re their local, home-grown, affordable and good quality plant nursery; they might not know about how the nursery is actually run, or what its purpose is.
“We felt we needed a rebrand that explained more clearly what we do here, and also included the nursery side of the organisation too.”
Plants and Minds recently invited local businesses and organisations to its Cherry Tree Nursery, including people from Healthwatch Dorset, to spend a day in the life of one of its volunteers.
