For Families

Future Roots has been based on a small 30 acre farm since 2008. It was set up by a registered social worker with a background in farming who has over 20 years experience of working with teenagers and families in Dorset.

We are able to offer an alternative to normal school where young people are able to learn in different ways through alternative provision.

Safeguarding and health and safety is paramount and entrenched in every decision we make. Although farms are notoriously dangerous, young people have said they feel safer at Future Roots than other environments.

Young people come to Future Roots for a variety of reasons including poor mental health and anxiety often displaying associated behaviours, struggling to manage mainstream school, displaying risky behaviours. We have not needed to exclude any young person to date and the team are highly experienced in working with complex young people. Several of the team are experienced and qualified in family work and Future Roots is on the Dorset Families Matter framework.

Future Roots is designed to offer a variety of learning opportunities that will build on resilience and identify strengths and skills. The team are experienced in using animal assisted therapy and their resilience model to work with complex issues that surround many young people. We offer a variety of regulated qualifications including functional skills in Maths, English and Young health champion. We also offer vocational qualifications in Agriculture and cookery. We are happy to explore other certificates and awards with the young people if they have particular interests. Although we do a lot of animal care activities, the farm teaches many transferable skills and qualities.

We generally work as a team in small groups but can offer one to one support. Young people who have been part of Future Roots say they feel safe here and that is really important to us as the baseline for making a difference to how young people feel and how they behave.

We have watched young people aged 8-18 turn their lives around, becoming comfortable with who they are, knowing what they want from life and most importantly finding ways of feeling happy and feeling part of a bigger picture. We haven’t met a bad young person yet in the 1,000s who have attended the farm only bad situations and bad choices.

Please look at our case studies and young people’s stories.