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Increasing numbers of health professionals are turning to nature based interventions rather than anti depressants or other medicines to help people improve their mental and physical health.
The NHS says "social prescribing link workers (and other trusted professionals in allied roles) connect people to community groups and agencies for practical and emotional support, based on a ‘what matters to you’ conversation".
This can include "both what is known as green and blue activities".
Pictured: A group of volunteers working with the Guernsey Conservation Volunteers at Albecq today.
Green and blue activities are things like walking schemes, community gardening projects, conservation volunteering, green gyms, open water swimming, or arts and cultural activities which take place outdoors, according to the NHS website.
Between 2021 and 2023, during a pilot scheme, the Bailiwick Social Prescribing team said they had helped "nearly 400 people and have had referrals from 95% of doctors who can refer into the scheme” with professionals making prescriptions along the lines described above.
That line of practice has now been brought into Mental Health Awareness Week, which for 2024 is focused on moving more to benefit our mental health.
With gentle - and often free - outdoor activities increasingly prescribed by Bailiwick health professionals, the ethics of 'green prescribing' have been included in the events organised for Mental Health Awareness Week.
Some of the events specifically focus on them, while others offer more gentle alternatives to traditional exercises.
Running from 13 - 19 May, the Mental Health Awareness Week events have been jointly organised by Guernsey Mind, the Health Improvement Commission, the Sports Commission, and Bailiwick Social Prescribing.
Pictured: This week's schedule of events for Mental Health Awareness Week.
Each of the organisations involved over the course of this week are sharing the same message, that getting active doesn't have to involve intense workouts or a gym membership.
"We have an incredible range of classes, groups, and activities suitable for all ages and abilities," said Jo Hollyer-Hill from Bailiwick Social Prescribing. "From dance and tai chi to walking groups and cycling clubs, there's something to get everyone moving."
This week, the green prescriptions offered by the Bailiwick Social Prescribing team have covered opportunities with the Guernsey Conservation Volunteers and the Clean Earth Trust.
Today, the GCV have been removing sour fig from the Albecq headland, while on Saturday there is a beach clean scheduled.
The apparent growth in green prescribing across the British Isles has been attributed to "strong and growing evidence that nature based social prescribing plays an important role in improving mental and physical health and reducing loneliness" (NHS England).
Seven 'test and learn sites' launched in 2021 to monitor the ways in which connecting people with nature can improve mental ill-health, and further sites have launched in the UK since then.
Here, Bailiwick Social Prescribing is a relatively new organisation, launching early in 2023 after an earlier pilot scheme that had started in 2021. The Bailiwick Social Prescribing ethos is around offering "a different kind of prescription".
It was initially funded through to the end of this year by a Social Investment Fund grant of £152,000 awarded to the Health Improvement Commission.
READ MORE...
Social prescribing to continue helping after new grant
Mental Health Awareness Week launches
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