Overview
Despite our love of formal training, much of the evidence suggests that learning happens between people and is best facilitated by peers. Creating a learning environment is key to all our work and, although never directly funded, our focus during our work in Newsham Park was to create an enabling network. This meant that we worked hard to foster relationships between different groups within the local community.
These differences in ethnicity, age, and socio-economic status were only reinforced by the ways in which funding was targeted at particular groups or particular problems. To overcome that, we deliberately sought to keep all activities open to everyone, not only on paper but in spirit. We also sought to create a safe psychological environment that enabled people to connect across perceived differences and find common ground between them.
The evidence of the success of this informal network can be found in the number of ongoing friendships between former participants and the extent to which the network-enabled people to share resources, help, experience and advice in ways that did not encourage dependency or foster shame.
The Enabling Network
NEWSHAM PARK
The following organisations and initiatives Tree House is either working to support or aligns with their values around social prescribing, social wellbeing, mindfulness and connectivity.
The following organisations and initiatives Tree House is either working to support or aligns with their values around social prescribing, social wellbeing, mindfulness and connectivity.
SERVICES
About Tree House
Project Delivery
Overview
One local young mother was concerned her young children were becoming detached from the natural world. She conceived of, designed, delivered and led a Wild Play programme in parks every Saturday, come rain or shine, from 2013 to 2017.
The target audience for the initiative was children rather than young people and it was they who were given the shared responsibility for determining the agenda for the project. Over the years, this engaged them in studying the natural environment, using microscopes to examine the micro-world of the lake waters and binoculars to observe birds and other local wildlife.
They were also able to take part in an activity that gave them greater ownership of, and confidence within, an open space in which most children of their age were not permitted the freedom to play. As well as the positive impact on them and their parents, these activities also make it more likely that, in the future, they will feel a greater sense of shared responsibility for the common spaces we share.
Wild Play
