A recent report by UNICEF (2021) revealed that across Europe 16.3% of children aged 10-19 years are living with a mental disorder, equating to 9 million children and young people (CYP).  In England this is thought to be even higher with 18.0% of children aged 7 to 16 years and 22.0% of young people aged 17 to 24 years living with a probable mental disorder (Newlove-Delgado et al, 2022).  The Covid-19 pandemic has caused many additional stresses for children and families (Crawley et al., 2020) and those already experiencing social and economic disadvantage are also more likely to experience mental health difficulties (Reiss, 2013), with concerns in the UK that the socio-economic mental health gap is widening (Collishaw et al., 2019).  Poor mental health impacts on many areas of a young person’s life, including educational disadvantage and increased risk of school exclusion (Ford et al., 2018) with many young people unable to satisfactorily engage in their education and schools increasingly looking for ways in which they can support the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils.

Forest School is an outdoor educational experience, usually in a wooded area, that takes place regularly over an extended period of time (minimum of two seasons in the UK).  It is facilitated by a trained practitioner, who supports the CYP to lead their own learning (Knight, 2011). Its popularity has been increasing across the UK and internationally over the past 20 years, with a developing body of research evidence of the positive benefits on young people’s emotional wellbeing and behaviour (McCree, Cutting & Sherwin, 2018; Coates & Pimlott-Wilson, 2019).  Forest School sessions are designed to build confidence and wellbeing through providing enjoyable and achievable challenges in a supportive environment, developing good relationships (between young people and adults and supporting relationships between the young people) and using reflection to encourage the CYP to internalise positive self-narratives as they emerge. 

Scotswood Garden is an award winning independent charity based in an urban area of the North East of England. The garden is located in one of the most deprived neighbourhoods of the UK, classified in the highest 10% for income, education, skills and training, health and crime deprivation (DCLG, 2019).    The education manager (Menter) has Level 3 Forest School accreditation and extensive experience delivering sessions with local schools and delivering Forest School training.  Through school-community partnerships, the Breeze project uses the Forest School approach with CYP experiencing social and emotional difficulties, including mental health concerns and difficulties engaging in education.  Following a pilot year in 2017-2018, Breeze worked with four local schools from 2018 to 2021; sessions took place at the community garden and were initially co-planned and co-delivered between the Forest School practitioner and school staff for one day a week over a school year (some adaptations were necessary during school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic).  In parallel two members of school staff engaged in Forest School training and accreditation and over the school year gradually took on independent delivery of sessions.  After the first year, schools either continued to access the garden independently or were assisted to find suitable alternative woodland and schools were invited to join a Breeze Forest School network, which continues to develop with new schools and offers on-going support to aid long-term sustainability. 

This paper will present evidence of the impact of the Breeze project for the CYP in relation to wellbeing and engagement in education, together with the processes that led to change and affordances and barriers experienced.  Findings will be discussed in relation to European context and relevance in supporting CYP’s wellbeing and engagement in education internationally.

The research used a co-production approach, recognising the reciprocal transfer of knowledge, skills and expertise from each partner (Hatzidimitriadou et al., 2012). The researcher (Tiplady) worked in close collaboration with Scotswood Garden and school staff to become an integrated part of the school-community project; this enabled the researcher to experience and hear the narratives told as the project developed, from both adults and CYP. Theory of change, proven to be particularly effective in co-producing frameworks for understanding complex change in social interventions (Dyson and Todd, 2010), supported the co-production process and was used to evaluate the impacts of the project. A steps of change diagram was developed for each of the four schools through in-depth interviews with stakeholders (drawing upon theory, research and practice knowledge) and sought to articulate the anticipated pathways to change for the CYP. Data collection was decided in partnership between the researcher, schools and Forest School practitioner and sought to evidence (or not) the steps of change. It also took account of what was reasonable and practical for each stakeholder, most notably during the Covid-19 pandemic when a number of adaptations were necessary. Data included a range of participatory research methods, including photograph elicitation, used to facilitate discussions between the researcher, CYP and staff, researcher observations, researcher interviews with parents and carers, Forest School diaries produced by the young people and quantitative data that were part of the schools’ usual data collection processes, for example attendance records where this was deemed to be relevant. Qualitative data was analysed thematically using Braun and Clark’s (2006) six phase process and quantitative data using descriptive statistics. This was then used deductively, in relation to evidencing (or not) the theory of change.

We will share results from the evaluated theories of change that show where there was either: ‘substantial evidence to support’; ‘partly evidenced’; ‘not evidenced in this period but no evidence to refute’; or ‘evidence to refute’. The range of data collected (from young people, staff, parents/carers, school data and researcher observations) allowed triangulation and confidence in findings. The richness of the data produced helped us to understand some of the causal processes that led to impact, and understand how different parts of the Forest School approach and school-community partnerships achieved impact through creating alternative learning environments. The environment created through the Breeze project appears to enable CYP to develop in different ways, in accordance with their individual needs and development. This includes providing an environment in which young people can develop their social skills with adults and peers, developing a connection or appreciation of nature and/or practical skills such as whittling or fire building. This was articulated by the young people as different both in terms of the physical environment (outdoors, woodland, nature) and pedagogically (learner-led, open-ended). This alternative environment appeared to be experienced as less stressful for many young people, enabling individuals to over-come anxieties and engage in learning through risk-taking. A minority of CYP struggled initially, particularly in making their own decisions and interacting with peers, however, where there were high adult to CYP ratios, young people were supported to follow their own interests over time and to develop skills. We will further reflect on the experiences of the school-community partnerships, from the perspective of the community practitioner and from school staff through interviews with the researcher. We will discuss where and how partnerships worked well and where it was more difficult, which could ultimately lead to a reduction in impact for the CYP.

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