Addressing a youth mental health crisis: Utilising therapeutic landscapes and creative approaches in an English school

This paper explores the Rooted in Nature research project, which developed a co-produced and arts-based methodology alongside children who were accessing nature-based activities designed to promote mental health and wellbeing. The aim of the project was to identify relevant health and social outcomes relating to involvement in these activities for the purposes of scaling up, particularly in the North East & North Cumbria in the UK.
Using a case study approach, this paper describes how the concept of therapeutic landscapes was utilised in the project and how data were gathered through the arts-based method of photo-elicitation with six pupils from a secondary school in North East England. The discussion of the findings focuses upon the views and experiences of the pupils involved in the activities and these are explored in terms of three themes: the enjoyment the pupils felt from being in nature and learning about it; the responsibility pupils felt for looking after nature; and thirdly, how these two aspects helped to contribute to a sense of better mental health and wellbeing. We conclude with a consideration of the potential for integrating what we have learnt within educational settings in the UK and more widely.