The GFT Landscape Contracting Enterprise uses the individuals' horticultural skills to improve interpersonal skills whilst gaining work place confidence. All of this provides a number of transferrable skills and survival strategies to help them to function in open employment in numerous types of work thanks to their improved self image.

The considerable difficulties that individuals with learning disabilities often have in transferring skills, once learnt, to a different environment have made it hard to "make a bridge" to open employment. By offering real work on our customer's own land it is possible for the workers to accept that they can work in a real job away from a training establishment and to a professional standard.

The scheme provides quality "estate skills" services to customers of all kinds. Based upon a long programme of practical training at the Glevum Farm Trust's farm. All kinds of land based skills can be offered. These skills include mowing, fencing, path building, striming and other amenity horticulture techniques.

Work teams are established to provide an effective crew mix based upon skill assessments. Placing a team thus constituted in a work context away from training facilities does improve their work skills and, in particular, their ability to work in the community in an effective and appropriate fashion.

It has also been an important aspect of the scheme that a detailed risk assessment is completed on all tasks undertaken.