A "friendly" Wirral café is giving autistic adults opportunities they "wouldn't have been allowed" in days gone by.
Bromborough Pool Garden Centre, run by Autism Together, shut for two years due to different safety rules it had to follow as a service supporting autistic people. But it reopened its doors to the public in May, and the autistic adults volunteering there "have more of a hands on approach than ever before", according to the garden centre's café manager Mike Christiansen. The 38-year-old said: "We're basically trying to develop everyone's skills, so they can possibly get another job out in the community themselves."
Founded in Wirral in 1968, Autism Together is a charity offering specialist autism services, residential care, supported living, training and advice to 400 people on the autism spectrum, and their families, in Wirral, Cheshire and North Wales. Along with its own garden centre, it also has a farm, canal boat, rock-rap band and choir, and it gives people the chance to learn skills like swimming, cycling, trampolining, rock climbing, painting, ceramics.
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The "highlight" for many visitors to its Bromborough garden centre, open Monday to Friday from 10am to 3.30pm, is the café, which has six volunteers a day taking orders, preparing food and drinks, and giving customers "friendly and personal service from the till to the table".
Geraint, 24, first started volunteering at the garden centre in 2018. A "very sociable person", he loves "having a lot of social interaction with the customers", so he's now responsible for leaflet drops, advertising and "making people feel welcome" during his two days a week there.
Dressed in a new apron, 30-year-old Greg volunteers as a chef, cooking food, creating menus and loading the dishwasher along with 41-year-old Clare, who "keeps everyone organised". They serve sandwiches, toasties, soups and cakes, one of which was in the shape of a Lego figure.
They also serve afternoon tea on a miniature picnic table with a tablecloth, and jacket potatoes will soon join the menu, created by the volunteers, as they gradually learn new skills. Greg said: "I enjoy working here. I enjoy helping on the tills and out in the garden centre. It's a very nice café for people to come to and have something to eat."
Mike told the ECHO: "It brings so much joy seeing them gain skills they wouldn't have been allowed to do in the olden days. It makes me happy to see them developing skills and to make them prosper in the future. My son has autism as well, he's only 14, but it's nice to know there's a place like Autism Together that he could potentially come to the future.
"A lot of people with autism have difficulties in social interaction, so it builds on those social interaction skills by interacting with the public, and it just raises more awareness to the public about autism."
Emma Crabb, manager of Bromborough Pool Garden Centre, said: "We would like to invite customers old and new to try out our reopened garden centre and café in Bromborough Pool village. Our vision involves the people we support being at the forefront of everything we do here. They have been involved in planning our menus, what plants we sell, where we place them out for sale, and even with our new branding.
"The garden centre's aim is to provide opportunities to help the people we support develop a range of social and business skills, including numeracy and communication. Our goal is to support our team to eventually get work outside of Autism Together.
"We are a non-profit charity and all money made is invested back into the people we support and their activities. The people we support really enjoy sharing what they have learnt with customers, so we do hope to see you at our garden centre and café soon."
You can find out more about the Bromborough Pool Garden Centre and Café on its Facebook page here, and you can visit the Autism Together website here.
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