Sustainability and Mental Health II

Hi all

My previous blog gave an overview of how the term 'sustainability' and mental health recovery are much the same thing.  In other words, things you can do to be friendly to the environment can also benefit your mental health, and there are plenty examples of this.  The conference that I referred to in the previous blog convened on Wednesday 12 October in Birmingham, and I was really pleased with the way it went.

Antony Cobley winning an award for University
Hospitals Birmingham community orchard

As I said before, nothing was groundbreaking.  The messages were fairly self explanatory and obvious, even, but to see real life examples where organisations use sustainability practices to improve patients mental health injected some real inspiration into proceedings.  All the academics tell us that sustainability and mental health can be achieved together, but seeing it actually happen is something else entirely.  The conference was successful, I thought, in showing real-life examples of how organisations that have been spurred on by individuals to create innovative mental health care ideas whilst also improving the environment.

Neil Deuchar set the scene; although he is retired from the health care scene now, he has years of experience and kicked off the conference with a passionate speech about how we need to do more as a society.  His idea that we need to not just consider the next generation, but the next seven generations in our thinking, was well received by every single delegate in the room.  This is true sustainability and got people thinking right from the outset about how positive an impact even small projects can have on people today and far into the future.

Next up was Julia Crear and Sallie Butt from Living Streets, who are trying to turn us into a walking nation, in spite of the British obsession with the car. They provided examples of how walking in groups can dramatically reduce social isolation, something I took great comfort from.  As a keen walker anyway, I was heartened to hear that walking can give such positive mental benefits.  I can feel this myself whenever I go out walking, I must admit.  Finally before the break, Caroline Hutton showed this wonderful video of the great work of Martineau Gardens and how their therapeutic horticulture programme brings people from the local community into nature, improving the environment and, again, how this can benefit recovering mental health patients.  Caroline's wish is to see these gardens exist in every area of the country allowing easy access for patients.  I really do hope this can happen!

After a refreshment break, we heard from Public Health England on how we cannot ignore the impacts of extreme weather when it comes to its impact on mental health patients.  I've been doing some research into this myself recently on behalf of Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust (BSMHFT) and found that the impacts are becoming increasingly quantified, but as Thomas Waite explained, there is still a long way to go before we understand fully the impacts of heatwaves and flooding on things like distress, domestic violence and long-term depression.

Then came more inspiration, courtesy of two local hospital trusts.  First of all, Antony Cobley with support from Chris Blythe from The Conservation Volunteers spoke about the University Hospitals Birmingham's work with their mental health patients and outdoor activities, volunteering and their community orchard, which literally acts as a form of mental health recovery.  There followed BSMHFT with Neil Cross talking more from an internal perspective; what has this Trust done to improve their sustainability?  He outlined their impressive waste, energy and transport savings in terms of both carbon and money, crucial in tough economic times.  Neil's presentation was very honest, though, and this was appreciated by the audience; he knew that he wanted to do more, particularly on the climate resilience side, to understand which of their premises and therefore their patients were most at risk from extreme weather.

The final 20 minutes of the workshop was spent with the delegates being asked to think of actions that they are going to take back to their organisation and their office afterwards.  I scribbled a spider diagram of these ideas during the session.  It struck me that people were inspired; what you have to remember is that most people attending the conference came from either a sustainability/environmental background or a mental health care background.  As such, one of the biggest successes of the event was to bring people from these two backgrounds together; this is crucial, and surely if these two different types of practitioners worked together they could achieve some excellent results and develop some inspiring projects.  Working together is, of course, crucial in times of low resources and to bring about funding opportunities.

This is the whole ethos of the organisation I work for.  I hope that, given our troubled times financially, we can carry on bringing these people and ideas together.

So all in all it was a successful, enjoyable and inspiring event.  I think the gap that remains, though, is a significant one.  When a person is in crisis, at their lowest ebb, what are the chances of them coming across an initiative like Martineau Gardens, or trying out a walking club, or using their community orchard?  Do they even know such things exist, and if so, would they be aware that they aid mental health recovery?  Even if they did, when you're at your lowest point, you can't possibly fathom such actions making any difference to your living nightmare.  So what we need is two things: 1) Better signposting and use of such initiatives.  But most importantly 2), a recognition that these schemes are not replacements for receiving adequate mental health treatment, whether it be talking therapy, medication or hypnotherapy. They can be complementary methods, of course, but not replacements. Sadly, mental health care in the UK is in meltdown and the sooner the government get their fingers out from their profit making materialistic backsides the better.  

You can find all of the outputs from the workshop on this webpage.

Best wishes
Al