Where does the Green Care Programme take place?

The day activities take place in our communities' working social farms, gardens and other natural spaces, our amazing art and craft workshops, printing press, cafés shops and food and other production enterprises. Expression and creativity are also important for wellbeing - we have purpose-built buildings for music, crafts and drama to deliver a range of creative nature-based arts within our Green Care Programme.

The range of activities is different at each of our communities - from being able to actively work outside in our gardens and farms, to participating in indoor nature-based creative arts, where we work with natural materials or celebrate the changing seasons and landscapes. As we care passionately about health and nutrition, we also offer opportunities working with food, from field to fork - from harvesting to processing and baking – right through to customer facing opportunities such as serving food in our cafés and working in our shops.

About our Green Care Programme

We offer seven main categories of supported activity: 

• Growing and horticulture (such as planting seeds, growing vegetables and other plants, maintaining gardens, harvesting produce) 
• Animal care and husbandry (such as feeding animals, grooming and care, collecting eggs, working with livestock) 
• Countryside management (such as tree and hedge work, maintenance of greenspaces, working with equipment and machinery) 
• Nature-based arts (such as woodwork, pottery, willow weaving and working with natural fibres)
• Creative arts for wellbeing (such as music and drama)
• Catering, food preparation and processing (such as preparing fruit and vegetables, jam and chutney making, baking, preparing produce) 
• Retail and customer service (such as working in the shop or café serving customers or working behind the scenes) 

The impact nature has on people with mental health problems

The Preventing and Tackling Mental Ill Health through Green Social Prescribing report shows that 8,339 people with mental health problems participated in nature-based activities through seven pilot projects. This initiative reached a diverse group, including children, young people, ethnic minorities (21%), and people from deprived areas (57%). Participants experienced significant improvements in wellbeing across all measured areas, demonstrating the positive impact nature-focused activities have on people with a mental health problem.

"These participants experienced improved wellbeing when accessing nature-based activities, indicating that GSP (green social prescribing) can have a positive impact."

Meaningful nature-based activities help people with learning and other disabilities as well as mental health problems.

Long term impact of Green Care

Through our provision of Green Care Opportunities, Camphill Village Trust contributes to the health, wellbeing and independence of people with a learning disability both at individual and community level, resulting in:  

“More people with learning and other disabilities having the opportunity and autonomy to live a more healthy, active and independent life.” 

Through our integrated social care and Green Care approach, we can provide a solution for the wider public health, NHS and social care sectors in the UK.