Celebrating the achievements of Nature on Prescription
- nicolahillary
- Jun 18
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Gloucestershire’s Nature on Prescription project was launched in 2023, supporting projects delivering green social prescribing to reduce health inequalities. Funded by NHS Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board, and working with Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership, a £100,000 investment was shared between three successful projects run by Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, Tewkesbury Nature Reserve, and Wilde Earth Journeys.
Green social prescribing is defined by NHS England as the practice of supporting people to engage in nature-based interventions and activities to improve their mental and physical health. Part of the aim of this programme was a focus on evaluation, helping build evidence that will strengthen the case for green social prescribing in Gloucestershire in the future.
With these projects all recently having finished this funding, we can share in this blog an update on some of their activities and achievements.
All projects are continuing, thanks to the support of further funding from Gloucestershire NHS Integrated Care Board. A big thank you to Hannah Gorf from the NHS - her vision and principles made this work possible.
Nature Nurtures
Nature Nurtures is a project run by Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (GWT) aimed at connecting children with nature, to create positive impact and well-being. The project focuses on children who are struggling emotionally or with mental health concerns, and aims to reduce health inequality, working within disadvantaged areas such as those with higher levels of social housing and free school meals.
Funding from Nature on Prescription helped to expand the programme to reach disadvantaged communities across Gloucestershire. During the project, weekly outdoor sessions were held for children of all ages across eight-week blocks, with groups in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and the Forest of Dean. Sessions included nature journaling and mindfulness with themed activities changing each week, for example foraging, bird walks, and campfire cooking.
Feedback showed that Nature Nurtures has been highly impactful for the children and young people involved. Evaluation revealed children’s positive mental health was increased through the sessions. Children learnt how to manage emotions better, made friends, and even transitioned back into full time education.
One teenager answered the question of “Do you think life is better for you after Nature Nurtures?” by saying “Yes, because this has helped me with my loneliness and health, just by coming here once a week was enough to make me better.”
Connection to nature was increased, with children wanting to and spending more time in nature, bringing their parents back to locations of Nature Nurtures sessions. Two community clubs were created outside of the funded programme to carry on similar activities going forwards, because the families really saw and experienced the value of the project. Among the learnings from the sessions, having small numbers of children attending was shown to be vital, especially for those with additional needs and anxiety.
Contact: RosieK@gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk https://www.gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk/nature-nurtures
Forest Bathing Therapy in the Forest of Dean
Wilde Earth Journeys set up and run fortnightly Wellbeing Walks in woodland in the Forest of Dean, in and around Cinderford West, with an approach based on Forest Bathing (Shinrin Yoku), mindfulness, nature connection and sharing stories and information of tree and plant identification. The team put a big focus making sure the sessions are accessible, including to people who might not normally feel physically able to take part in outdoor activities, people with mental health challenges, and provided a guide for a participant who is visually-impaired.
The sessions are sociable and full of creativity such as poetry and focusing on different senses to explore the environment. Food from a local supplier helps to increase the sociable benefits.
Shinrin-yoku (experiencing the forest atmosphere or forest bathing) has received increasing attention from the perspective of preventive medicine in recent years, with some studies reporting that the forest environment decreases blood pressure. The project and evaluation intended to build on this, using a blood pressure monitoring device pre and post walk.
Across a 9 session period of monitoring, there was shown to be a significant effect from the Wellbeing Walks on a reduction in blood pressure. Furthermore, participants’ feedback showed that there was also a positive impact on mental and emotional wellbeing.
"It's the bit every two weeks that I always look forward ... Being able to get out there and just switch off and disengage from the world and engage a different world."
"I didn't do anything for ages….I don't have the physical capability to go out on a walk, you know, like a route march. This is different, it's slowing down, and moving my body in a way that I can do"
The project demonstrated a number of factors for success including:
Running a regular long-term programme rather than a shorter time-limited “prescription” helped people to have time to find out about the service and to continue to reap the benefits.
Having a team of walk leaders and organisers helped the group to cater to a range of accessibility needs.
In common with the other projects, creativity and mindfulness approaches are very effective to make the most of the health benefits of nature connection; as well as the sociability benefits of eating food together.
Contact: Hello@WildeEarthJourneys.org
Wildlife and Water for Wellbeing (3W)
Tewkesbury Nature Reserve is a significant environmental and community asset near to one of Gloucestershire’s more deprived communities, Tewkesbury South. They worked with community partners to deliver activities that foster community connections and improve wellbeing, with the project particularly focused on working with older people and with children.
The project sought to increase nature connectedness and bring health and wellbeing benefits to people in the community. Sessions were tailored to support individuals with physical and mental health conditions, special educational needs, and who experience loneliness and isolation.
Activities included creative arts-based nature activities, a range of intergenerational activities, and sessions run in collaboration with a mindfulness practitioner. Over 12 months, 30 activity groups (of either one-off events or multi-week courses) were run, with outreach and networking events also running alongside.
Engagement with children, young people, and families was promising from the first phase. Provision for older adults grew during the second half of the project, particularly with the connections built with health and social care agencies.
Tewkesbury Nature Reserve includes floodplain meadow, and can often be inaccessible due to flooding. In addition, some members of the local community who would benefit from the project have access needs that would prevent them doing activities on the reserve itself. Therefore the project developed ways to bring inspiration from the nature reserve directly to people in locations such as the community hospital, assisted living accommodation and a local care home.
Comprehensive evaluation of the project was carried out by UWE, University of the West of England. This project continues thanks to additional funding from the NHS Community Health and Wellbeing Grant scheme. Learnings from the first phase of the project are being carried forward to allow for regular activities to continue, while increasing outreach and bringing the benefits of nature to as many people as possible.
Contact: 3w@tewkesburynaturereserve.org.uk
Conclusions
A successful green social prescribing project needs to be able to combine skills in working with vulnerable people and a range of health and social challenges, with nature knowledge and access, and creativity and mindfulness approaches.
All three projects would agree that longer-term and consistent funding and provision is vital. Nature Nurtures expressed this well – “Time is needed for word to spread that Nature Nurtures was happening, ironically in the last month of the 12 month project, more enquiries about booking children came through than ever. Knowledge of [services] takes time to filter through, especially through schools and NHS services.”
The ways through which engagement with nature for health can be “prescribed” are complex and still need work. Tewkesbury Nature Reserve described this well: “Despite putting protocols in place, social prescribing referrals from local GP services remain elusive. Nevertheless, the project has developed ongoing referral and recommendation links with an increasingly diverse range of agencies that cover different age groups and interests.”
Wilde Earth Journey’s forest bathing Wellbeing Walks recorded a reduction in blood pressure for participants, post-walk and over time, as well as improved mental and emotional wellbeing. This is supported by previous studies which have shown that the forest environment has a positive effect on lowering systolic blood pressure in people with high blood pressure and in middle-aged or older people.
Nature Nurtures’ project evaluation report concluded “There is such a clear and obvious need for this work to improve the mental health of children, in a context of some deprivation and bigger societal issues.”
References
Ideno, Y., Hayashi, K., Abe, Y. et al. Blood pressure-lowering effect of Shinrin-yoku (Forest bathing): a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Complement Altern Med 17, 409 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-017-1912-z
Yau KK, Loke AY. Effects of forest bathing on pre-hypertensive and hypertensive adults: a review of the literature. Environ Health Prev Med. 2020 Jun 22;25(1):23. doi: 10.1186/s12199-020-00856-7. PMID: 32571202; PMCID: PMC7310560.
Nature-based outdoor activities for mental and physical health: Systematic review and meta-analysis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8498096/
Nature on Prescription handbook: https://www.ecehh.org/research/nature-prescription-handbook/
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