News

Mention nature therapy and images of tree-hugging or some other New Age-related activity may spring to mind. And yet activities such as gardening, horticulture and environmental work have been proven to increase people's self-esteem and confidence, helped them to learn or re-learn skills, and improve their quality of life.

Indeed, for people with drug and alcohol addictions an environmental restoration project, officially launched in May, is providing a healthy, active and progressive part of the recovery programme.


As well as restoring the environment, the Phoenix House English Nature therapy programme, based in county Durham, is also looking to restore motivation, self-confidence and self-esteem in service users as they turn their hands to dry stone walling, river clearance, footpath repair and hedge-laying.

Phoenix House, a national drug and alcohol charity which worked with over 9,000 people last year, had previously piloted a programme in the Derbyshire Dales. "Our research shows that service users who participated in the conservation therapy scheme were found to be 20 per cent less likely to drop out of drug rehab treatment," says chief executive Bill Puddicombe. The results have been so positive that the project is set to be introduced to five other of the organisation's treatment centres around the UK over the next few years.

One former service user, John Crane, is unequivocal about the benefits the project brought to his life. He says: "Rebuilding dry stone walls was enjoyable but it was hard work; however, it was effort on my own terms - you got out what you put in."

He continues: "Seeing a job through to its conclusion and doing it properly was immensely rewarding. After all my years of drug abuse, where I seldom completed a task, it was reassuring to learn that I could function as an individual within a team, taking pleasure in playing my part in constructing walls, which will still be there in 300 years."

The programme is a unique partnership with English Nature, the government environment agency that manages the country's 215 national nature reserves covering 89,917 hectares. "Nature is beautiful, fascinating and challenging and contact with it can be a powerful way to bring about individual change," says development manager, Dave Stone. "The success of this programme also shows that our organisations have made a real difference to people's lives by working together - it's been an all-round winner."

He says that Phoenix House clients receive therapeutic benefits that help them with their recovery, also the environment and wildlife benefit from the work that the project's clients do.

"Meanwhile, local communities and visitors to our national nature reserves are enjoying better access, facilities and contact with nature. We hope that others will be encouraged to see the natural environment as a resource that can help deliver their goals for change."


Another winner is Francis Brown* a service user at Phoenix House's Tyneside rehabilitation centre. "It's good for personal development and helps as a bonding exercise for everyone involved," he says. "Also, the local community are in a position to see people giving something to society as a whole, helping us all gain confidence. It's a bridge-building exercise between ourselves and the community."

The physical side also promotes better mental health. This is important as many people with mental health problems, for a variety of reasons, experience poor general health. This may be because simply living with a mental health problem can increase a person's stress levels or there may be a lack of motivation to take care of oneself. But a healthy body can mean a healthy mind.

"Getting involved with a programme like this has helped immensely with my rehabilitation," says Stewart Long*, a service user at Phoenix House's Sheffield centre. "It has given me other outlets for my emotions and feelings of joy and anger: the joy of completing tasks and putting your stress and anger into physical activities."

* Not their real names.

Lessons learned

• Working with partners who are not automatically associated with social care helps bring a freshness of approach and a willingness to try out innovative ideas. Also being "outside" the usual partners, they don't tend to wait for things to happen and this helps to really move things along.
• The nature restoration work is physical and outside. Both these elements have a strong therapeutic impact on the mental health of service users. They are not stuck indoors,  not motivated and feeling bored. Their bodies are active and this, in turn, activates the mind helping bring a sense of purpose and achievement to their everyday lives.
• Take time to pilot the projects and trust the qualitative aspect of your evaluations as well as the more usual quantitative side.