Our lives are not separate from the natural world

There is growing evidence that spending time in green space or bringing nature into your everyday life can benefit both mental and physical wellbeing. For example, doing things like growing food or flowers, exercising outdoors, conservation work or being around animals can have lots of positive effects. By increasing participation and awareness, nature-based approaches have the potential to address health inequalities and improve health and wellbeing for individuals as well as to significantly reduce public health costs by encouraging healthier communities. Natural England reports that nature-based initiatives are cost-effective and can return as much as up to £10.70 on every £1 invested, which means that these approaches are an important way forward for health and social care across the country.

Nature and wellbeing opportunities available to residents of Somerset.

We know that the benefits of these sorts of approaches are multiple, including lower blood pressure and cortisol, reduced stress, improved mental health, reduced isolation and loneliness. Several studies show us that nature connection is significantly related to lower levels of anxiety: after being part of a 12-week nature and wellbeing programme, 83% of participants improved their wellbeing (Wildlife Trusts). Several of the projects working in and around Somerset use the 5 Pathways to Nature Connection as a way to support participants to develop more nature-connectedness, which can also improve pro-environmental behaviours.

One example of a fantastic Somerset project, is Neroche Woodlanders, a social enterprise based in 100 acres of beautiful woodland on the edge of the Blackdown Hills. 

Neroche Woodlanders lease the woodland from Forestry England and run wellbeing and volunteering programmes in the outdoors, while working to conserve the woods and make the place better for nature and people. Their motto is to ‘work with nature to fire spirits, kindle community, and foster wellbeing’. They started their ‘Young Wild Explorers’ group for parents and toddlers during Covid in October 2020. The YWE group specifically targets low income and Lower layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) districts within Taunton. The majority of participants are isolated parents who have limited access to other forms of support, and they are living in social housing. 21% of households in Taunton Town Council neighbourhoods do not have their own vehicle, making this a big barrier to accessing nature. To make this group more inclusive they provide these families with free transport to get there, along with a hot meal. Most of the nature and wellbeing programmes happening across Somerset provide transport and seek to make accessible opportunities by reducing barriers.

During sessions everyone is encouraged to take part in activities, enjoy a shared meal and time with their children in a relaxed and non-judgemental environment. Forest School activities also encourage speech and development of vocabulary. And we all know how fast children grow, to help out, families can return an outgrown waterproof or snowsuit for the next size up, and they also have a welly library!

Participants have reported an improvement in mental health, well-being and self confidence in their parenting abilities.

One parent said: “the support from staff has helped me through the toughest time in my life with mental health issues and the opportunity to spend quality time with my family or time to myself if needed.”

Another said: “It makes my child happier and more independent and also gives me a chance to chill and talk about my problems.”

Each session is led by an experienced team of Forest school leaders with early years practice, along with a team of well-trained volunteers, some of whom are retired doctors, dentists, teachers and speech and language therapists to name a few.

Visit the Somerset Wildlife Trust to find out about more wonderful wellbeing projects in the county.

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