Evaluation of Nature-Based Behavioral Health Programming
Increasingly, behavioral health practices are integrating nature into their sessions with individuals and groups. I work with behavioral health practices who do nature-based behavioral health work to help them evaluate the impact of their programming.
Summary of Work
I work with Reset Outdoors, a clinical mental health practice and organizational development firm, to evaluate the impact of their nature-based behavioral health programming. Recently, we collaborated on a study at Bethlehem Area Vocational Technical School (BAVTS) to evaluate their Intro to Well-Being program among High School Students. The program consisted of between one and eight sessions, with outdoor and indoor activities designed to develop students’ self-awareness, sense of belonging and connection, and reduce stress. To evaluate the impact of this program on the health of students, I conducted pre-and post- surveys among intervention and control classrooms, and interviews among participating teachers.
Teachers described the sessions as beneficial to students’ expression of emotions, mindfulness skills, personal/social connections, and classroom atmosphere.
A teacher reported “It was a really good introduction to the students about thinking about mental health and thinking about coping and thinking about feelings… it showed the importance of dealing with the mental health stuff by having a demonstrated strategy to deal with it.”
One teacher reported that the outdoor walks provided students with a more “natural way” to “take care of… some of their head stuff”, while another teacher explained that the walks encouraged students “to be themselves. But then, at the same time it wasn’t just a walk to walk, but it was also to say, ‘(I) want you to observe, I want you to listen. I want you to absorb what’s going on around you.’”
