Ecominds-effects-on-mental-wellbeing-evaluation-report

48 <strong>Ecominds</strong> <strong>effects</strong> on mental wellbeing5.3 About the projects, participants andactivitiesThis section contains details on the projects that tookpart in the In-depth evaluation, the participants whowere involved, the type of activities undertaken, thelength of sessions and time spent at the project.5.3.1 The projects in the evaluationNine projects took part in the ‘In-depth’ evaluation.The aim was to provide a representative sample of<strong>Ecominds</strong> projects to include:a) all types of project, i.e. a mix of care farming,social and therapeutic horticulture, environmentalconservation, facilitated green exercise and natureart and crafts projects;b) projects that both included formal therapy andthose that did not;c) projects from all of the geographic regions;d) a range of project sizes (in terms of number ofbeneficiaries); ande) a variety of different grant sizes.As with any programme of this type, where anevaluation takes place over a number of years,degrees of ‘buy-in’ to the evaluation will varybetween projects and some level of drop-out is tobe expected as changes in project staffing, skills orresources occur over the duration of the programme.As a result, although the variety in geographicalregion, project size and grant size is represented,neither a project specified as predominantly facilitatedgreen exercise nor as nature arts and crafts isincluded in the ‘In depth’ evaluation. However, dueto the flexible approach of ecotherapy, many of theprojects included do actually incorporate elementsof facilitated green exercise or nature arts andcrafts. Only one of the projects involved in the ‘Indepth’evaluation included formal ‘therapy’ as partof its programme and the other eight projects are‘therapeutic’ nature-based interventions (which isrepresentative of the <strong>Ecominds</strong> programme as awhole). More details of the projects included in thisevaluation can be seen in Table 3 and in Chapter 7.Table 3. Name, type, size and location of projects in the ‘In-depth’ evaluationName of projectGrow ItType of projectSocial and TherapeuticHorticultureNumber ofbeneficiariesGrant SizeRegion100+ Large East MidlandsGrow2Grow Care farming 21-40 Flagship South EastGrowing Clearer MindsSocial and TherapeuticHorticulture100+ Small EastGrowing Well Care Farming 100+ Large North WestSeed to SucceedSocial and TherapeuticHorticulture1-20 Small LondonSpring to Life Environmental Conservation 100+ Large South WestThe Outdoor Club Environmental Conservation 21-40 Small South WestWellbeing comes naturally(Sheffield and Bedford)The Wildwood<strong>Ecominds</strong> ProjectEnvironmental Conservation 100+ Flagship NationwideEnvironmental Conservation 100+ Large South East