A grassroots approach to mental health care is flourishing in Bristol. Bekki Pugh, Nature Coordinator at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (AWP), and a dedicated team of mental health workers have transformed a small allotment project into a trust-wide nature-based mental health service.
A ground-up approach to nature-based mental health care
Unlike many healthcare initiatives that start with decisions at senior level, the project is growing organically from a small allotment project. Bekki explained the thinking behind it all: “We want to embed nature-based practice within services but we have to start small and prove its worth. So we used funding from the Green Social Prescribing fund to start running a weekly allotment group and we’re seeing where it goes.”
Over two years, a single allotment day a week grew into Bekki supporting Central Recovery, South Recovery and now recently North Recovery team, reflecting the expanding need of the project. The service now supports 40 service users each week across the three recovery sites with new referrals coming in weekly.
Clinical care and community
The project bridges a gap in mental health services. While service users receive care through medication, key support workers and sometimes psychotherapy, the allotment groups provide a more community-led route into recovery. The space offers a supported environment where individuals can build confidence and skills before taking steps into public community settings, such as volunteering for environmental charities, city farms or community garden spaces.
“I think it’s really important for a service to offer alternatives,” Bekki notes. “Everyone has support around them with their medication and with their psychotherapy, but the fact that we can offer a stepping stone before going into other community projects, I think that’s the gap in services that we’re trying to fill.”
Practical benefits
The benefits show up in practical ways. Groups not only grow produce but cook with it, creating a complete cycle. Sharing food prepared from produce grown by the service users themselves creates moments of genuine accomplishment.
“People like to take all the veg and the fruit home and then bake or make something at home and then bring it into the next group,” Bekki explained. “I love people creating dishes out of the produce. Then we all share it together and everyone just feels really content with themselves and connected with each other.”
The project focuses on small moments of pleasure rather than making it feel like a treatment pathway. The therapeutic benefits of the project develop through engagement with nature and community. “The project helps service users who are keen gardeners to reconnect with nature but also opens the door to a community who haven’t ever had a garden or grown any veg before,” added Bekki.
What next?
The project continues to evolve with several exciting developments planned:
- An outdoor kitchen at the Speedwell Central site to facilitate cooking groups alongside gardening
- Biodiversity enhancement at the Petherton South site, including pond restoration and native wildflower planting
- A new site with the North Recovery team that recently launched and will be developed throughout 2025
- Integration of nature-based practice into a monthly Inclusion Group psychotherapy group at the Petherton South site
- Bringing Nature into Practice Staff Training Days to get staff members more involved with nature-based practice
The project is working in line with AWP’s new core values to incorporate nature-based approaches into treatment pathways, moving beyond informal social gardening toward more structured therapeutic interventions. This represents an important shift in how nature-based practice can be integrated into clinical mental health services.
Challenges and sustainability
Despite its success, the project faces challenges – from weather variability and climate change issues to more fundamental issues such as maintaining funding. “The challenge is to keep ourselves here, keep the groups running, making sure that people are still prioritising nature-based practice for years to come,” Bekki explained. “In the last year the allotment projects have partnered with AWP’s charity Headlight in order to keep fundraising support. In return for doing some of our own fundraising, Headlight have been ring-fencing our funds and supporting us with community grant applications which we are incredibly grateful for.”
A model for future nature-based mental health care
The project demonstrates how healthcare can evolve to build in nature-based interventions that complement traditional treatments. By starting small, demonstrating value and gradually expanding services, the project has created a model that other healthcare providers can learn from.
For healthcare professionals interested in doing something similar the advice is drawn from nature itself: start small, build networks, adapt as needed and share widely.