Lancashire Wildlife Trust - Nature and Wellbeing

The nature and wellbeing service is an exciting and innovative ecotherapy offer run by Lancashire Wildlife Trust. We work with anyone aged 18 years and over, that is feeling anxious, isolated, or has poor mental health, and lives in Lancashire or Greater Manchester (Bury).

Primarily we are a service which is all about getting outside to experience the many benefits of being out in nature. Face-to-face sessions take place weekly at 23 locations in Prestwich (other locations are situated throughout Lancashire).

We offer small groups of people the chance to learn about nature and wellbeing alongside our trained team. Nature and wellbeing service aims to help participants feel better connected, meet new people, learn about nature, improve wellbeing and start to look positively to the future.

Empowering people and their communities to connect with local environments in order to learn new skills, build resilience, meet new people and improve their physical health and mental wellbeing. We are passionate about nature and a core focus of all our sessions is to help nature and aid its recovery. Connecting people to nature and improving their wellbeing is at the core of what we do.  

The service comprises of weekly outdoor practical sessions, led by a fully trained member of staff. The activities and themes will vary from session-to-session dependent on the season and group, but will all relate back to at least one of the five ways to wellbeing - Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Learn and Give.

Sessions are based around nature and will follow one of our five key themes; bushcraft, wildlife walks, growing, practical conservation and mindfulness.

Examples include:  Fire lighting, Litter picking, ID walks, invasive plant removal, Nature drawing and making bird boxes.

Research has shown that such activities can reduce stress, anxiety and many low-level mental health conditions whilst also improving physical fitness, health and wellbeing.   

Sessions are 100% free and we offer up to £5 travel expenses per session.  

Participants can be referred, or self-referred though our website. 

Myplace | The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside (lancswt.org.uk)