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

70 <strong>Ecominds</strong> <strong>effects</strong> on mental wellbeingThrough the funding of 130 ecotherapy projects andthe 12,071 216 people that have been involved withand helped by the programme, <strong>Ecominds</strong> can beconsidered to have had a major impact, both in termsof supporting people suffering from mental ill-healthand in sustaining the provision of ecotherapy servicesacross England.The aim of the <strong>Ecominds</strong> scheme was to help peopleliving with mental health problems to get involvedin nature-based initiatives in order to improve theirconfidence, self-esteem, and their physical andmental health. In this regard, given the statisticallysignificant rise for the majority of participants inmental wellbeing parameters such as wellbeing,positivity, self-esteem and mood over the courseof the programme, <strong>Ecominds</strong> can be seen ashaving been a success. These findings suggest thatecotherapy could be beneficial for a range of mentalhealth conditions and could be used as a treatmentoption in the same way as antidepressants andtalking therapies.In addition, the need had been recognised for morerobust, scientific evaluation to be carried out on thebenefits of ecotherapy projects for people sufferingwith mental health problems 217 , in addressing this,the <strong>Ecominds</strong> scheme has also been successful.The <strong>Ecominds</strong> wellbeing evaluation involved over800 participants from 61 different projects, and thefindings from this study (derived from outcomemeasures which are standardised, widely used andrecognised by health and social care professionals)add convincing evidence that a wide range ofdifferent ecotherapy projects can provide a range ofmental wellbeing benefits for participants.6.2 Limitations and future research6.2.1 Limitations of researchAs with any study, there are a number of limitationswhich may have affected the results of this research.• Firstly, evaluating 130 diverse projects is alwayschallenging. Although all of the projects wereworking in nature, with a view to increasingwellbeing and social inclusion for people withmental health problems, they all predictably havetheir own individual aims, objectives and structures,delivery methods, timescales and focus. In additioneach project varies in the staff skills, resources,motivation and time needed to be involved in anevaluation process. Designing an appropriateevaluation methodology suitable for the majority ofprojects is therefore not easy and without doubtsome projects and staff engage more with theprocess than others.• Secondly, due to both logistics and availableresources, all methods in the University ofEssex evaluation were questionnaire based,which unfortunately inevitably tends to excludeinvolvement of some participants. Although everystep was taken to ensure that questionnaireswere as simple as possible, not too lengthy or tooonerous to complete; and it was made clear thatthose who couldn’t access questionnaires could behelped by project staff or carers if they wished;there were still some groups or individuals forwhom the questionnaires were not appropriate andwhose voices were not heard.• As with any research of this type, the idealapproach to collection of data is by independentevaluators, able to administer questionnaires,conduct interviews and carry out participantobservation on a representative sample ofparticipants. This approach is quite costly, in termsof time, resources and money, especially given that<strong>Ecominds</strong> consisted of 130 projects all over England,and was therefore not possible for this evaluation.All questionnaires were therefore administeredby project staff, with guidance and supportfrom University of Essex staff, which may haveintroduced the possibility of representation bias.• Overall numbers of people taking part in the<strong>Ecominds</strong> evaluation were good, and sufficientto enable statistical analysis. However, althoughrepresentative of the programme as a whole, somegroups had smaller numbers and so precludedany meaningful statistical analysis. For examplein this study over 89 per cent of participants wereclassified as ‘white British’ and there were notenough people in any of the other categories todetermine if the beneficial <strong>effects</strong> of ecotherapywere similar or different for all ethnic groups.• Although the significant improvements to wellbeing,social inclusion and nature connection areconsiderable through direct comparisons made forparticipants ‘before’ and ‘after’ their involvementwith the <strong>Ecominds</strong> scheme, there was no controlcondition in this study. That is, no comparisonto other options for participants, for example acomparison between attending an ecotherapy