WHEREAS, Horticultural Therapy (HT) – also known as Garden Therapy, Social Therapy, Social Care Farming, and Wilderness Therapy – uses plants and related nature-based activities to provide benefits to individuals or groups in therapeutic, vocational, educational, and wellness programs; populations served by HT include children, youth, and adults with disabilities, mental illness, or abuse trauma; veterans; persons with delinquent or criminal convictions; seniors and the terminally ill; and patients, staff, and visitors at medical facilities; and
WHEREAS, the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) is the only organization that registers horticultural therapists in the United States through a voluntary professional registration program; the designation Horticultural Therapist-Registered (HTR) ensures that professional competencies have been achieved based on standardized academic requirements and professional training; and
WHEREAS, HT has a separate scope of practice than that of recreational therapists; credentialed HTRs are members of rehabilitation treatment teams along with physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, allied health professionals, and other specialists such as intern or volunteer Master Gardeners; and
WHEREAS, the third full week of March, which includes the Vernal Equinox, has been designated as National Horticultural Therapy Week to promote HT in sponsoring facilities and their communities, highlighting year-round programming and bringing attention to the field of HT; and
WHEREAS, North Carolina’s HT contributions include the work of Dorothea L. Dix (1862-1887) and her advocacy on behalf of persons with mental illness; Dix promoted the health benefits of HT, and wrote that active exercise in the open air, moderate labor in the gardens, pleasure grounds or upon the farm can improve health; and
WHEREAS, North Carolina has had active HT programs with effective leadership since the 1970s, as well as a university system that features horticultural and agricultural degree programs, botanical gardens, and arboretums; The Carolinas Horticultural Therapy Network (CHTN), formerly the Carolinas Chapter of the American Horticultural Therapy Association (CCAHTA), has advocated since 1988 for HT in both North and South Carolina;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, ROY COOPER, Governor of the State of North Carolina, do hereby proclaim March 20 – 26, 2022, as “NATIONAL HORTICULTURAL THERAPY WEEK” in North Carolina, and commend its observance to all citizens.