Gardening for mental health
On World Mental Health Day, Bankside Open Spaces Trust’s Community Engagement Facilitator Mustafa Korel reflects on acknowledging and overcoming some of the barriers people living with a mental health illness face in taking part in community activities like volunteering.
Here at Bankside Open Spaces Trust, we know the health and wellbeing benefits of spending time outside, and of our volunteering groups.
In 2023, 70% of our volunteers told us they felt more appreciated as a result of contributing to the upkeep of our green spaces.
We also know that for people living with a mental health condition, who are neurodivergent or whose life might be outside of what is consider ‘normal’, taking the leap to join a volunteer group might be difficult.
This is why we partner with organisations working closely with people who might find it hard to take part. Our aim is to make joining in feel easier and more welcoming so more people can benefit from being outside and contributing to their community.
Recently we’ve been running two programmes - Exploring Self Through Nature, an eight-week programme run in partnership with the Single Homelessness Project and Exploring Anxiety in Nature at Crossbones Graveyard with the Psychosynthesis Trust.
Exploring Self in Nature is part of the Single Homelessness Project’s GreenHouse, which aims to help people reduce isolation and build confidence from being part of something. With the benefits of spending quality time outdoors in mind, we designed the programme’s workshops to help people connect with nature and creativity for personal discovery, support and growth.
The group meets and spends the morning gardening and the afternoon crafting. Over the past few weeks, our group of six have coppiced a willow and woven garden ornaments from them, and enjoyed walks in urban parks, using materials collected on the way to create artworks.
We were also joined by a team from our regular corporate supporters BlackRock to clear a new growing space, which we used to plant up spring bulbs (all white daffs and triumphator tulips to be precise).
Over at Crossbones Graveyard we helped to run the Psychosynthesis Trust’s Exploring Anxiety Through Nature programme in September. The programme uses nature and gardening as the vehicle for managing anxiety. The programme is busy but supportive – each task has value beyond itself. We picked vegetables, and participants took the harvest home to cook with (look at that delicious borsch). We took inspiration from the garden’s plants and flowers to make art. We made time to appreciate wildlife visiting Crossbones and we had space to share stories from each other’s lives and make supportive friendships.
We’re excited by the positive response to these programmes here at Bankside Open Spaces Trust and we will continue to use the power of nature to raise awareness of, and find way of managing, life with a mental health condition.
Exploring Self in Nature is kindly funded by Single Homelessness Project’s GreenHouse. Our Community Engagement work is supported by The National Lottery Community Fund and City Bridge Foundation.