Perkins School for the Blind – March 2019 (SOLD OUT)

Northeast Horticultural Therapy Network Workshop & Business Meeting
Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, Massachusetts
Saturday, March 30, 2019

REGISTRATION CLOSED/ SOLD OUT

Explore Your Senses and Dig into Documentation

Join colleagues and friends for a day with the Horticultural Therapy team at Perkins School for the Blind. Spend the day with experienced Horticultural Therapists and TVI’s at the Thomas and Bessie Pappas Horticulture Center, the famous geothermal energy greenhouse. Attendees will learn about an established 36 year Horticultural Therapy program, how individuals’ daily progress is documented and experience a hands on sensory activity.

9:00am Registration and Continental breakfast

10:00am Sensory Exploration Greenhouse Activity

It will be an interactive experience where you will work in pairs with blindfolds and vision disability simulators. Teams will be able to find plants that represent each of the five senses in Perkins unique and therapeutic sensory environment.

11:30am NEHTN Business Meeting

12:30pm Lunch

Optional: Tour the tactile Perkins Museum.

1:30pm “Dig into Documentation”

Learn why documenting qualitative and quantitative progress is critical as professionals and for validation of Horticultural Therapy. We will share practical documentation methods to help you incorporate it into your busy jobs. Groups will be actively documenting while doing the activity.

 And will get to choose from one of three hands-on projects:

– plant/floral

-dried/herbal

– functional academics (science/math)

2:30pm Networking, Connections and Goodbyes

3:00pm Outside Garden tour – For those who want to linger a bit longer…..bring your galoshes as the garden is just waking up!

 

Contact information

Deborah Krause, HTM
Horticultural Therapist
Coordinator, The Thomas and Bessie Pappas Horticulture Center
Perkins School for the Blind
175 North Beacon Street
Watertown, Massachusetts 02472
617-972-7685

 

Helen Keller Quotes:

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched , but just felt in the heart”.

“Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. . . .

Hear the music of voices, the song of the bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow.

Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail.

Smell the perfume of the flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again.

Make the most of every sense;

glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you”.

“Three Days To See,” The Atlantic Monthly, January 1933

 

Directions

By Car:

From the Massachusetts Turnpike, also known as I-90 (traveling east or west), take Exit 17 and follow the signs marked “Watertown,” which lead to Galen Street. Follow Galen Street, crossing the bridge, to Watertown Square. Bear right (not the hardest right that leads along the river) onto North Beacon Street (Route 20). Follow North Beacon Street for about one-half mile to the Perkins campus (located on the right). Pass the campus and turn right onto Beechwood Avenue. The main parking lot is on the right.

By Public Transportation:

From the Green Line:

At Kenmore Station in Boston, take Bus #57, marked Watertown. Get off at the last stop, Watertown Square. Cross the bridge and stay to the right, following North Beacon Street (Route 20). The campus is one-half mile on the right. (Travel time: about one hour.)

From the Red Line:

At Harvard Square in Cambridge, take Bus #71, marked “Watertown.” Get off at the last stop. With your back to the river, walk to the right following North Beacon Street (Route 20). Follow North Beacon Street for about one-half mile to the Perkins campus located on the right. (Travel time: about 45 minutes.)

From Green Street and Prospect Street in Central Square (Cambridge):

Take Bus #70, usually marked “Cedarwood.” A few minutes after the Arsenal Mall, get off at Beechwood Avenue (tell driver in advance). Follow Beechwood Avenue to the left for one block. The Perkins campus is located on the right at the intersection of Beechwood Avenue and North Beacon Street. (Travel time: about 45 minutes.)