Luckily in April 2021 a few things came together.

As Area Lead for Bright Start Central, I attended a local forum alongside partners such as Greenspaces (the Islington Council team responsible for parks and leisure), AgeUK and Whittington Health. One of the ideas that emerged was to bring together children and older people in a local green space. We felt that an all-age intergenerational project would be a great way support the local community, and hopefully alleviate some of the social challenges that covid had brought about.

Fortuitously at this time we were given the keys to the Highbury Fields One O'clock Club. It consisted of a large lawn with mature plain trees and a derelict building. Families with children under five had previously used this space, so it was familiar to them. Colleagues from different departments in the local authority and voluntary sector worked together and managed to secure funding for children and families to access green spaces in order to support better mental health. The plan was to use this funding to focus on developing Forest School provision in the borough, as well as intergenerational events.

We wanted to provide Forest School sessions in each of the three localities so that local children and their families could easily access their local green spaces. However, at this time we did not have enough Bright Start practitioners to facilitate these services, so we asked our voluntary sector partner The Garden Classroom to run their successful “Little Explorers” groups for us. These groups ran across the three localities.

To make this project sustainable, we knew we needed to train our own staff in Forest School principles. By September 2022 we had enough Forest School trained workers across Bright Start and our partners to ensure that we could run 4 outdoor sessions each week in each of the three localities throughout the year, and we have been running Outdoor Stay and Plays as part of our Bright Start universal service ever since.

The collaboration between Bright Start and Greenspaces has been a great success. The first intergenerational event ran at the Ecology Centre and Gillespie Park Nature Reserve in July 2021, and events have run each season since.

The intergenerational events have brought together children and adults from all age groups to learn about and enjoy local nature as the seasons and the nature that lives in them change. The teams have grown to know each other well and how best to run the services with regular activities including singing, pond dipping, nature walks, visiting musicians and nature crafts.

We also have talks aimed at older children and adults which take place within the Ecology Centre. We have had a diverse range of topics such as local nature, astronomy and local archaeology. All of the intergenerational events have run in the Central locality either at the Gillespie Park Nature Reserve or the Highbury Fields Wildlife Garden but we are excited that the first intergenerational event held in the South Locality will be running on Saturday, 15 April 2023 at Barnard Park One O’clock Club.

Since Bright Start and partners started running Outdoor Stay and Plays, Forest School activities and intergenerational events in our local green spaces, over 1000 families with under-fives have accessed our services. All these children and adults have had the opportunity to get muddy and be physically and mentally stimulated by local Islington nature; whether that was sitting by a fire, playing in a mud kitchen, pond dipping, or learning about bird song.

As a collective service, we can model our love of nature and wildlife for local people, whilst supporting a better understanding of climate change and the biodiversity crisis so that we can all learn what we can do to make the right decisions for a brighter world full of hope.