Children's Mental Health Week

It’s Children’s Mental Health week and this years theme is 'Growing Together'. Here at Derbyshire Wildlife Trust we want to make sure that everyone has the chance to experience nature no matter what age.

Nature can bring a number of benefits to mental and physical health. Even small moments in nature whether that be going for a walk around your local green space or sitting out in the garden for a few minutes, can make a difference. For Children's Mental Health Week we want to share some of the events and activities that we run throughout the year and how running these sessions helps to bring children of all ages closer to nature.

Nature Tots

We run our Nature Tots, which is for pre-school 0-5 year old’s. Throughout these themed sessions we provide hands-on sensory activities, crafts, wildlife stories, wildlife spotting and much more. We encourage children to learn, play, have fun outdoors and experience their first moments in nature. These sessions are also a great way for parents to engage in nature activities too and take home ideas for their children.

Forest School

We run forest school sessions which are aimed at children aged 6-15. From making campfires to building imaginative dens, forest school is a great way for children to learn outdoors individually or in a team in an outdoor learning environment. We encourage children to take their own direction with forest school, with some activity prompts to help them along the way, forest school can be as imaginative and creative as the children wish it to be.

Junior Rangers

Our Junior Rangers sessions are for children aged 11-18 who are wanting to get hands on experience in the outdoors. It’s a great opportunity for children who are wanting to get into conservation in the future or just have an interest in the outdoors! The programme also provides opportunities to gain qualifications in navigation, first aid and also the John Muir Award. Our Junior Rangers have said the reason they wanted to come to these sessions was that they enjoyed the feeling they could make a difference to help wildlife. They felt “calm, happy, healthy, free and relaxed” whilst taking part in the Junior Ranger sessions at Carsington Water.

School visits

Our school visits offer children a chance to connect with nature beyond the classroom. It’s a chance for children to learn more about wildlife in a unique learning environment and build their personal development. We offer a variety of talks, explorations and educational workshops. We can visit schools or schools can come to visit us. We've had schools visit us at Carsington Water where we ran pond dipping sessions, owl pellet talks and much more!

event — (c) Kayleigh Wright / pond dipping Carsington Water

We also have our Green Influencers for young people who want to take part in youth action, learning new skills and gain experience to implement environmental action in their community. We teamed up with Derbyshire Mind to create our 5 Ways to Wild Wellbeing with a 'wild' twist to help people in keeping active, giving, connecting, learning and taking notice.

Research has shown just how much spending time outdoors in nature can benefit children’s wellbeing. It builds self-esteem, gain new skills and learn to understand their own abilities and find what they really enjoy. Spending time outdoors, working together in a team or individually allows children to be creative and learn how to solve problems. Not only does it provide a benefit to mental wellbeing but for physical health too and encourages children to adopt a healthy lifestyle and care about the environment around them.