Last night I was asked to present at a webinar for the wonderful people at Tewkesbury Nature Reserve as part of their Green Skills for Green Recovery Programme. Specifically, colleagues and I were asked to join the conversation about health and wellbeing, nature connectedness and social prescribing. Now I do enjoy a natter, but talking, albeit informally, in front of dozens of people did get me a bit hot under the collar. When we were tallying up numbers I asked the organiser Robyn to tell me there was 6-7 people attending as opposed to the planned 67 who had signed up (and apologies if this figure is not 100% accurate, but I am in a pre-speaking blur at this stage). Thankfully, it went well, I enjoyed myself, my colleagues were their usual amazing selves, and it was exhilarating to have a good old chat about our work. However, on looking back on my notes, I realised I hadn’t covered half of what I wanted to, and even then may of included the odd upside down word (again what happens in my speaking blur).
Some of the content I wanted to get across relates to a social prescribing intervention evaluation I undertook with colleagues, Dr Rachel Sumner and Dr Matthew Sitch in March 2020. I should have reported on this a while back but thems the breaks. You can follow a link to the full report here. Enjoy my highlights below.
The Nature on Prescription (NoP) programme was provided by Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to support individuals in a cardiac care pathway, specifically to support their health and wellbeing through recovery. The eight-week programme aimed to address this through engagement with nature, such as gentle walks, exploring new natural environments and learning about conservation. Participants were approximately 70% male, and the average age range was 61-70 years.
Our evaluation of the programme took a mixed methods approach; we gathered self-report survey data before and after the intervention, including measuring subjective wellbeing and nature connectedness. We also interviewed the participants, either one-to-one or in groups (whichever was their preference). I conducted all the interviews, and thematically analysed the data with Matthew, so this is the area I’d like to explore a little more here; the experiences we encountered from the interviews. We interpretated three key themes: ‘outcomes’, ‘barriers’, and ‘facilitators’, but for today I’m going to focus on the theme ‘outcomes’.
Under ‘outcomes’ participants noted that they felt physically and psychologically fitter because of the intervention. For example, participant GA: “I’ve done things I didn’t think I was ever going to do”, refers to the acknowledgement that they had been physically incapable of strenuous exercise to the point of feeling like a “fool” putting themselves at risk and now found themselves confidently striding up a hill.
Participants also felt they had learnt a lot during the programme, both about themselves and the natural world around them: “I’m sort of looking at leaves, I’m smiling, it’s making me happy because it reminded me of being all these places I’ve never, ever gone to, or haven’t been for years, I’m noticing things”, noted participant LE.
These were both aims of the programme, for participants to experience physical activity and to learn about the nature around them. Another highlighted outcome of the programme was ‘social interaction’, which wasn’t an aim for the intervention but a happy happenstance. Here there was talk of setting up a WhatsApp group and to continue walking as a group even after the programme had ended.
For many the content of the social interaction was more than a meet and greet, it was comradeship and what we’ve labelled as a ‘health exchange’. Some of the participants felt they had learnt more about their own health from conversations within the group. Participant GA told me:
“...the medication they’re on, how they felt, what they experienced and all the rest of it. You couldn’t get that, it’s not written down, that level of knowledge I would never have gained in such a short period of time”.
I think this nature-based social prescribing intervention is a great example of what can be achieved with a group of people with a shared lived experience, as in all were recovering from a cardiac episode, except for one, who was a carer of a participant. The focus on getting fitter (bearing in mind our cohort were in recovery) and learning about how to protect nature was a key driver for people to take part. And this paid off, for example, participants were noticing nature up close, and tasting it via herbal teas made from the nature around them by the nature guides. One participant spoke of going home and making bird boxes, others wanting to share their newfound knowledge with their grandchildren, deepening their connection with nature.
Finally, for me, I would argue that legacy is really important for a social prescribing intervention. Opportunities to volunteer after the programme has finished is discussed a lot from the perspective of social prescribing participants. Often there will be a key contact that rallies the cohort and organises a WhatsApp or email group. This needs to be encouraged but grown organically as it is, after all, for the needs of the participants.
I’ll come back to the data and discuss the other themes another time, but if this has given you a nudge to read more, please follow the link here.