Wildlife trust launches new scheme to help with mental health

The ‘Wild Skills Wild Spaces’ (WSWS) team from Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust recently met at Llyn Coed y Dinas in Welshpool to exhibit the brand new ecotherapy programme.

Ecotherapy is the term given to a range of activities and treatments that reconnect people with nature and the environment, in order to improve health and wellbeing.

Research carried out by the Wildlife Trust movement and Essex University has shown that such activities can reduce stress and anxiety and other low level mental wellbeing concerns.

Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trusts’ head of health and wellbeing, Carla Kenyon, has been working in partnership with Powys Teaching Health Board to develop a project that empowers people who would not typically engage in outdoor activities or prescribed therapeutic interventions.

Staff from local mental health services have taken part in taster sessions, which has already generated a lot of interest, with many eager to refer people to Wild Skills Wild Spaces.

With funding from the Welsh Government, the emphasis is on providing free, inclusive and accessible sessions which are non-clinical and participants can partake at their own pace.

Carla said: “It has been a long time in the making and was due to start in 2020, and so after five years hard work we are really pleased to have recruited a fabulous and very experienced team to finally deliver this fantastic Welsh Government flagship project.

"Working with professor Diane Crone and her team at Cardiff Met Uni we hope to provide standards, a framework and the evaluation needed to help influence social policy in Welsh Government.

"By bringing people closer to nature and wildlife, we hope to help and contribute to the wellbeing of lots of people in north Powys."

Ecotherapy session stomping ground will include local reserves Llyn Coed y Dinas and Severn Farm Pond in Welshpool, Dolforwyn Woods in Newtown, as well as open Newtown site ‘Cultivate’ Community Gardens.

Activities will include wildlife walks, bushcraft skills like fire lighting, growing projects where participants will get to harvest and cook their own food and many other exciting opportunities.

The programme will be run on a 12 week basis, with sessions lasting for two and half hours, once a week for small groups.

The inspiration for Wild Skills Wild Spaces came from Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s ‘My Place’ project, running wellbeing sessions based on the ‘five ways to wellbeing’ which are connecting with nature, being active, taking notice, learning and giving back.

Findings from the project in 2019, revealed that 100 per cent of case studies felt happier, more confident and less angry; some participants gained employment as a result of acquiring new skills and improving self-confidence.

WSWS colleagues will be working with a research team led by Professor Crone at Cardiff Met University to evaluate the success of their own programme and provide standards and a framework for Welsh Government to hopefully influence social policy.

If the project is as successful as Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust hopes, it could potentially carve a pathway and framework for similar schemes to be set up in other parts of Wales.

To find out more visit montwt.co.uk/WSWS