Puddle Dance

Our current preschool Nature Nurture group have developed a new dance... The Puddle Dance.  Do join in!

Hope and Hopelessness

‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how’

Friedrich Nietzche

What is the difference between someone who becomes a victim and someone who faces adversity and even thrives on challenge?  The word that is often used in medicine, psychology and even physics is resilience.  Resilience is that quality that most of us possess to a degree where we can not only cope with, but bounce back from difficult or traumatic times.  Nature Nurture is in the business of understanding resilience, what it looks like, why some people have and others don’t seem to, and how it can be cultivated in an individual.  You see promoting resilience is a bit like making an investment.  From a small seed sown in early life there can be a huge return later on. Scottish government report notes that for every £1 spent in early intervention, £9 is saved when that individual becomes an adult.  A healthy, wealthy society needs individuals who are resilient, confident and creative.  The optimum, but not only, time to develop resilience is in early childhood.

So that’s what resilience is and why we need it, but what does life look like when it’s not there?  The children who join Nature Nurture come from families that don’t have a lot of resilience.

Many of these families have experience generations of despair, alcohol abuse, substance misuse, mental illness or domestic violence.  There is little feeling of hope in these households.  The children born to these families are often vulnerable and set on a trial very similar to their parents and grandparents before them.  Those who don’t have a good start in life, who don’t have their mental, emotional and physical needs met, grow up with the odds stacked against them unless they can develop a sense of hope and purpose.

Nature Nurture has developed a model of what resilience looks like based on the ideas of Daniels and Wassall, and Groteberg.  In our version of the ‘Building Blocks of Resilience’, there are seven domains of health and wellbeing that need to be integrated and strong in order for an individual to experience resilience.  The seven areas are:

·        mental and emotional wellbeing,

·        physical health and wellbeing,

·        social competencies,

·        talents and interests,

·        positive values,

·        creativity and imagination,

·        knowledge and understanding;

 After working with this model for three years I start to realise that the central core of these seven areas is hope.  If an individual cannot experience the ‘why’ to live for then the seven areas of resilience cannot be integrated or strong.  In a little child that ‘why to live for’ is expressed in joy, in the older child it is the motivation or curiosity and wonder that drives exploration and learning. I firmly believe that every human being is born with this innate sense of hope and purpose, but I’ve seen children as young as 2 who have already lost that spark.  I have also witnessed hundreds of children regain their hope and purpose through programmes closely attuned nurturing interactions and free play in natural environments.

 

The powerful combination of real engaged nurturing, free play and exhilarating natural environments gives back the hope and purpose that combats hopelessness.  Intervention that works with these elements is like a preventative medicine that breaks the generational cycles of vulnerability, dependency and abuse by giving back the ‘why to live for’ that is the key to resilience.

The Nature Nurture Fund update

On 27^th May, Stefan Geider, GP and director of the Camphill Wellbeing Trust, will run the Edinburgh Marathon.  He hopes that friends and colleagues from across the UK and further afield will sponsor him and help raise funds for The Nature Nurture Project.    This is all part of a national fund raising effort that Camphill Wellbeing Trust launched in March, The Nature Nurture Fund, which aims to raise £150,000 this year to support this project.

The Nature Nurture Project works with some of the UK’s most vulnerable children. Although the project cannot change a child’s life circumstances, it can help them develop the inner fortitude required to bounce back from the adversity that they will face.  Nature Nurture helps some of the growing numbers of children from disadvantaged families affected by substance misuse, alcohol abuse and domestic violence. 

Nature Nurture offers children and young people time and space in natural environments, consistent nurturing, attuned adult/child interactions and free play. This is a powerful formula that can support and promote the child’s health and wellbeing. Time outside in nature with adults that are tuned into their explorations and interests has a positive impact on the child’s motivation to learn and boosts their experience of themselves as a person who is valued and loved. Simple acts like this can make a huge difference and help lead a child out of the cycles of vulnerability and dependency that have blighted their families over two, three or more generations.

Nature Nurture is an approach that has developed from the insights gained through Waldorf education and Camphill social pedagogy and through applying current research into resilience, trauma and neurological development.  It began in Camphill over three years ago when local family centres and schools sought the support of Camphill for some of their youngest clients.  A pilot scheme run by our kindergarten teacher proved so successful that money was found by the local authority to run a 12 month pilot with nurseries and family centres across Aberdeen.  Although the children showed remarkable development and families, schools and other professionals reported significant progress in learning, wellbeing and general health, local authority money ran out.  Now the project runs entirely through fund raising efforts and donations.

Nature Nurture continues to grow and develop however. Groups of 10 children (preschool, 5-8 year olds or 8-11 year olds) are nominated for programmes of 10- 20 weeks by professionals such as social workers, health visitors, head teachers, child psychologists. The children join us in the peaceful grounds of Camphill School Aberdeen. They attend an afternoon each week during term time and for a week of whole day sessions during school holidays. 

The sessions are structured as a journey through different natural environments.  The route is consistent providing structure and continuity.  The journey is punctuated by time in special places that invite quiet contemplation or adventurous play.  Some of the special places include a shallow stream, a large grassy slope, woodland, sensory play trails and farm land.  Play in these locations is initiated and led by the children; the adults’ role is to facilitate by being available if needed and to provide the materials, skills and knowledge to enable the children to extend and build on their ideas. The walk between locations gives opportunity to explore, collect, enjoy physical challenges or to relax and chat. Companion animals; three specially trained dogs and two donkeys, accompany the older children in their sessions.

The Restorative Power of Outdoor Play

Through free play the children grow and develop self-awareness, confidence and self-esteem because they can test and practise important skills at their own pace in exciting, stimulating and challenging environments. Playing outside can be peaceful and relaxing or exhilarating and highly motivating.  Children play more collaboratively, are more adventurous and energetic when they are outdoors.  They feel better, have a more positive, joyful outlook and are more engaged with the natural world.  Often the children arrive for their first sessions fearful, anxious and withdrawn because of tensions in their home environment or at school.  By the third or fourth week we begin to see the children emerging from their shells with increasing confidence, curiosity and sense of adventure.  Many children quickly make connections and relationships with the natural world and often we see children respond to nature with awe and wonder for the first time.

The Nature Nurture Project gives children the opportunity to play freely, alone or with other children.  The adult’s role is to facilitate rather than direct.  This requires sensitive observation, deep empathetic attitudes and presence of mind. We need to be constantly and consistently available, noticing what is important to the child and creating a group ethos that celebrates effort, creativity and self initiative. Gradually children who previously have expected and experienced failure begin to value themselves and feel valued by others. The natural spaces in which we play are challenging yet safe, stimulating yet relaxing, peaceful yet exciting.  The combination of environment, a programme that is led by the children’s play and adults who are sensitive, observant and attuned to each child’s playful explorations and discovery, creates sessions that are deeply nurturing for every child who participates.

Family Work: Ensuring Sustainability

The Nature Nurture team are joined in the sessions by social work, health or educational professionals. They receive training in the approach and work alongside the team supporting a group of children for the duration of a programme.  This ensures that the approaches developed with the children are transferred to other settings such as family centres and schools giving greater sustainability to our work with individual children and allowing others to benefit from these professionals’ learning and skills developed through the project.

Two spaces in each session are offered to parents or carers. During these visits parents are supported by the Nature Nurture team in observing and discussing their child’s play and experiences.  We help parents to plan for similar outdoor play opportunities for their children and identify safe and accessible greenspace in their local area. For many parents these visits to the project can be as much a therapeutic experience as it is for their children.  Many discover or rediscover the joys of exploring natural environments.  Many parents feel empowered and inspired when they see their children play freely and interact in positive ways with others.  Most feel enormous pride when they see their child’s confidence and developing skills. 

After every session a member of the Nature Nurture team takes the children home, making time for family members to ask questions and receive feedback on their child’s accomplishments during the session.  For many parents this is the first time they have had positive feedback about their child.  These meetings are invaluable and for many family members it can be the first steps towards understanding their children’s strengths and needs and a springboard into more positive and nurturing relationships within the family.

Research into ‘Healing Environments’

There is now a significant body of research into the effects of natural environments on individuals’ health and wellbeing. However, one doesn’t need to be a scientist to know that being active outdoors makes you feel good.  Most adults over the age of 25 have fond memories of playing outdoors when they were children and can remember the great feeling after plenty of fresh air and physical exertion.  Research has shown that children who can play freely outdoors are motivated to do so because these experiences help them to feel well.  We intuitively know that looking at a beautiful landscape creates a feeling of peace that reduces stress. Research (Ulrich, 1991) has shown that blood pressure and muscle tension are improved for individuals who are able to view green space. 

Many people choose to go for a walk in a natural environment to have the experience of ‘getting away from it all’.  Green space can help us feel that we can put down the stresses and tensions of our daily lives or put problems into perspective.  The natural environment inspires poets and musicians because it can both stimulate and soothe our senses. Research has shown that access to green space reduces aggressive tendencies (Kuo and Sullivan, 2001) and improves concentration and memory (Kaplan, 1995).

Important emotional connections with nature occur early in life. Most adults, when asked to name the most significant place from childhood, consistently recalled somewhere outdoors (Wells 2000, see also Eigner & Schmuck 1998). Research consistently shows that nature acts to provide psychologically restorative experiences improving an individual’s sense of well-being (Ward-Thompson et al., 2005). Interactions with natural environments provide distraction from everyday stresses (Pals et al., in press), emotional stress (Korpela et al., 2008) and, for children in particular, result in higher cognitive functioning (Wells 2000). However as Richard Louv in ‘Last Child in the Woods’ highlights, there is an increasing prevalence of ‘nature deficit disorder’ in children, with fewer than ever engaging in outdoor play (Louv 2008). Access to natural environments is therapeutic.  Green space can be a powerful intervention against physical, mental and emotional stress. 

‘Green Therapy’

Nature Nurture is a ‘green therapy’ for traumatised or anxious children.  This approach can help children who experience any kind of stress, whether it is due to an attachment disorder, a trauma, or from a learning disability or emotional/behavioural disorder such as ADHD.  When young children experience stress they can enter into a vicious cycle of learning and behavioural difficulties which in turn also increases stress levels.  Breaking this cycle can put a stop to long term and debilitating neural damage caused by the stress hormone, cortisol.

Building Resilience

According to Grotberg (1993), for a child to become resilient, he or she needs to feel trusted and loved unconditionally; needs to feel lovable and respectful of themselves and others; and needs to feel able to talk to others, to solve problems and to be able to practice self control.   Nature Nurture can promote the growth of resilience through encouraging children to build up trusting relationships and through learning to assess risk, to set personal challenges and dare to overcome fears in a thrilling but carefully assessed manner. Research has shown that children who are allowed to develop skills in risk assessment have fewer accidents and are less likely to seek excitement and exhilaration through unsafe and undesirable situations.  Helping children to assess risk and manage their own risk boosts their self-confidence, self awareness and sense of responsibility for themselves.  It also gives them the self-certainty to face personal challenges and to problem solve creatively and confidently. These skills are vital to the development of resilient individuals who can face and overcome adversity in adult life.

Free play in nature unlocks the imagination of the child and the sensory experiences the children encounter stimulate their wish to explore without overwhelming them.  In peaceful and beautiful natural settings, children experience awe and wonder for the world around them and learn to relate to nature on a personal level.  This gives children an important value base for future environmental and ecological awareness, as well as giving them a sense of place and belonging.  Children learn to care for and about their natural environment and associate being outdoors with feeling well and healthy.  Childhood wonder has a strong impact on the values and attitudes of adulthood. We therefore hope that the experiences we can give children will help inform their lifestyle choices as adults.

Nature plus Nurture equals Resilience

The Nature Nurture project aims to build the child’s resilience, providing an intervention that is sustainable and that combats the effects of trauma, neglect and anxiety.  Our aim is to help vulnerable children develop the fortitude they need to face and overcome the hardships of their lives and to give them the personal strength and motivation to make healthy lifestyle choices when they are older.  By giving vulnerable children a programme of outdoor experiences in natural environments we have found that the seeds of resilience are sown and grow quickly and strongly.  Through training and ongoing support in the approach, partner organisations have shown that they can make the development sustainable and hopefully help to break the cycles of vulnerability that have existed in families for generation after generation.

The Nature Nurture Fund: Creating more Opportunities to Support Children

When Stefan Geider runs in the Edinburgh marathon on 27^th May, he will be helping to ensure that more children have opportunity to develop resilience through free play and nurturing in natural environments.  With his support and that of others who are helping raise money for the Nature Nurture Fund we hope to give Nature Nurture to 120 children and training to 25 professionals in the Nature Nurture approach this year.

Terri Harrison

Nature Nurture® is a business name and registered trademark of Family Support Projects

Registered company No. SC352081 (Scotland). A Charity No. SC040277 (Scotland)

For more information on the approach and training opportunities please contact:

Terri Harrison
http://www.facebook.com/NatureNurture

office@naturenurture.org.uk

http://naturenurture.org.uk/

References

Eigner, S. & Schmuck, P. (1998) cited in Bögeholz, S (2006) Nature experience and its importance for environmental knowledge, values and action: recent German empirical contributions, Environmental Education Research, 12(1) 65-84.

Kaplan, S. (1995) The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182

Korpela,K., Ylén,M.,Tyrväinen L., & Silvennoinen, H. (2008) Determinants of restorative experiences in everyday favorite places,  Health & Place Vol. 14, Issue 4, 636-652

Kuo, F. E. & Sullivan, W. C. (2001) Aggression and violence in the inner city - Effects of environment via mental fatigue. Environment and Behavior, 33, 543-571.

Louv, R., (2005) Last Child in the Woods Algonquin Books New York ISBN 9781565-125223

Ward Thompson, C., Aspinall, P., & Montarzino, A. (2008) The childhood factor - Adult visits to green places and the significance of childhood experience  Environment and Behaviour, 40(1), 111-143.

Wells, N.M. (2000) At Home with Nature: Effects of 'Greenness' on Children's Cognitive Functioning  Environment and Behavior. Vol. 32, No. 6, 775-795.

Ulrich, R. S. (1991). Effects of health facility interior design on wellness: Theory and recent scientific research. Journal of Health Care Design, 3: 97-109.

Pals, R., Steg, L,. Siero, F., and van der Zee, K (in press) Development of the PRCQ: A measure of perceived restorative characteristics of zoo attractions, Journal of Environmental Psychology

Grotberg (1993) Promoting resilience in children: A new approach. Cited in A Guide to Promoting Resilience in Children: Strengthening the Human Spirit

Available: http://resilnet.uiuc.edu/library/grotb95b.html (Accessed 20/12/09)

The beginning....

This page will be an in depth look at our evolving practice and approach in the Nature Nurture project. As we work on developing our early intervention programme to support vulnerable children's development of resilience, we would like to share our questions, triumphs, joys and discoveries with you here. The magical formula of free play, attuned nurturing interactions and nature create fertile ground for each child's growth in health, well being, creativity, sociability, confidence and self esteem. The approach is simple, yet highly effective.

Our children are some of society's most vulnerable. Our children have experienced neglect, abuse, trauma or lack stability in their lives. We can't change their outer circumstances of poverty, parental substance misuse, alcohol abuse or domestic violence.... but we can help them find the inner fortitude to face and overcome the adversity that life will place in their way.

Resilience grows, we believe, through a balanced and steady development across seven domains: mental and emotional well being, physical health and well being, social competencies, talents and interests, values and attitudes, creativity and imagination, and knowledge and understanding. Beautiful natural environments in which children can free play with the encouragement, interest and nurturing of specially trained adults, supports growth and development in each of these domains. The following articles will illustrate how we facilitate growth in each domain and how are children respond to nature, nurture and play through our programmes.