Jesuit Social Services staff explore how nature-based therapy can enhance their practice

On a rainy morning in a patch of Kew bushland, Jesuit Social Services staff gathered to learn about nature-based therapeutic practice and the ways it can enhance their work with participants, and improve their own wellbeing. 

Nature-based therapy describes activities centred around engagement with the natural world to improve physical, social and emotional wellbeing. It is not only about green spaces, and can include engagement with the built and urban environment. 

Bianca, Jesuit Social Services’ Ecological Justice Project Officer and training facilitator, told us, “nature-based therapeutic practice has been shown to have a variety of benefits to the brain and body, including the capacity to see things from a new perspective, feeling a greater sense of belonging to the world, and slowing down the part of the brain which narrows on thinking and ruminates, among other things”.  

After hearing from staff on the ways they engage with nature and the outdoors into their practice, it was clear that whether or not they used the language of nature-based therapy, staff were already practicing it in a variety of ways. 

Pip, who works in people and leadership development, said: “I was taken by the idea of how time outside – including while moving/exercising, can promote problem solving and access to new perspectives – I know this intuitively but great to hear it too!” 

Michelle, whose work re-engages school-aged children in education and training, commented, “it’s very useful to think about how going for a walk or sitting in a park with a young person has a therapeutic basis – what we are doing has merit, from a therapeutic lens”. 

The training was held at the Bush Hut – the site of Jesuit Social Services’ The Outdoor Experience, our Bush Adventure Therapy program for young people with substance abuse issues. 

Ashleigh, who works in our community justice programs, said, “even being out at the Bush Hut, in that beautiful space, was a really nice removal… going somewhere different, somewhere surrounded by nature, and being grounded, by simply just being there”. 

After exploring the evidence behind nature-based therapy, half our attendees went for a silent walk from the lookout at the Bush Hut – an invitation to notice the world around them in an open and contemplative manner. The other half played with their senses for engaging with the world and practiced some childlike remembering of how interesting nature can be. 

To close the session, staff were brought back together to share ideas of how to take these practices or new ideas forward in their life and work. Ideas raised included running grounding exercises for participants outdoors, rolling down the windows and inviting participants to see and smell the outdoors while driving between appointments, and using ‘tuning into our senses in nature’ as a metaphor for listening to our inner voice to tune out societal expectations or standards, and support better decision making.  

Bianca, training facilitator, told us, “understanding the benefits of engaging with nature when doing social justice work offers us a potentially transformative doorway to new forms of understanding ourselves and the individuals we work with”.