Journeys, Leaves & Seeds: Growing Together – 2 Years as a C.I.C (Sept 2024–Sept 2025 Impact Summary)

Jenny Smillie
Oct 7
3 min read

🌿 A Year of Growth and Connection

This year has been one of incredible growth for Journeys, Leaves & Seeds C.I.C — filled with muddy boots, laughter in the trees, and new partnerships that helped us reach more families than ever before. Across the Liverpool City Region, we’ve continued our mission to nurture well-being, confidence, and connection through nature-based learning.

From forest school play sessions to specialist SEND programmes, we’ve seen children and families blossom outdoors — discovering resilience, creativity, and joy in every leaf and log.

🌼 Reaching More Families Than Ever

Our sessions have been buzzing with activity! Over 1,200 children joined our programmes this year, taking part in everything from stay-and-play sessions to holiday adventures. (And these numbers only reflect the work we do at the different types of community forest school sessions!)

Highlights from our forest sessions:

Bowring Park Forest School – 673 children discovered woodland wonders through play and exploration.
SEND Family Forest School – 172 children and their families found calm, confidence, and connection in nature.
Weekend & Holiday Forest Schools – 185 spots filled by families eager to make the most of their weekends and holidays outdoors.
Let’s Talk in the Trees Celebration – 66 families came together to celebrate communication, creativity, and connection.

Every stick whittled, marshmallow toasted, and bug found added up to a thriving year of community learning.

🌳 Projects that Made a Difference

This year, our partnerships helped us bring nature’s healing power to even more children and young people:

🌱 Independent Special School Project A 10-week programme supporting Year 7 boys with additional needs and SEMH challenges. We saw remarkable growth in cooperation, focus, and self-confidence — with staff reporting calmer, happier students who were proud of their achievements.

🔥 Swanside Youth Club & Community Centre Our ongoing collaboration continues to be a cornerstone of our community work:

Weekly nature clubs for over 60 young people
After-school nature crafts running through the year
HAF-funded holiday clubs bringing joy and skill-building to local children

🌻 Growing Sudley Partnership Together we hosted forest school parties, outdoor stay-and-play sessions, and specialist events such as the Down’s Syndrome Liverpool Family Fun Day and Barnardo’s Young Carers Therapeutic Group.

🌈 Intergenerational SEND Events In partnership with Community Wellness Hub CIC and Active Community Enterprise CIC, and supported by The National Lottery Community Fund, we delivered a summer event that brought generations together through shared outdoor experiences — so loved that we’re planning another in October!

🌸 The Power of Therapeutic Nature

Together with Growing Sudley CIC we ran a year-long therapeutic nature project for children facing anxiety, ADHD, autism, and low self-esteem at two primary schools. Through fire pit reflections, mindfulness (“hot chocolate breathing”), and creative play, these children learned to regulate emotions and grow in confidence. The results were profound — calmer classrooms, happier children, and stronger friendships. Full case study has been produced and our project continues for another academic year funded by the Liverpool One Foundation.

🍃 Sharing Knowledge & Inspiring Others

Our Director, Jenny Smillie, continues to champion outdoor education across the UK.

Delivered The Magic of Outdoor Learning training to over 100 educators through Kingsnorth English Hub and the Local Government Association.
Supported seven schools within the Outcomes First Group to embed high quality teaching and learning, innovative leadership, governance oversight and well-being approaches.
Developed resources such as an Outdoor Learning Audit, now featured by Early Years Fundamentals.

These initiatives spread the message that high-quality education takes many forms — indoors and out — and that meaningful learning thrives wherever curiosity and connection are nurtured.

🌼 Funding the Future

We’re grateful for the incredible support that’s allowed our projects to thrive:

Knowsley Council: £10,000 across two grants supporting SEND and home-education projects. (All funding costs have been spent and projects ended in May and July 2025)
The National Lottery: £20,000 ensuring our core family forest sessions continue to flourish.

We’re also excited to be part of the Trading for Good Community Business programme, helping us strengthen our long-term sustainability and continue serving our community. This programme helps community businesses like ourselves become more financially resilient. It supports them in growing their traded income through a structured learning programme, a peer support network, and an innovative 'Match Trading' grant of up to £4,000 that incentivises and rewards income growth.

🌿 Looking Ahead

This year, we’ve deepened our roots — establishing a Parents Advisory Board to ensure our services truly reflect the families we serve, and improving our website to make it easier to connect with us.

We step into the next year with gratitude and excitement — ready to keep growing together, outdoors and in community.

Thank you all for continuing to support us.

Jenny xx