Nature Therapy

Isle of Wight

£7,000 Bridging the Gap Recipient - January 2014

Nature Therapy aim to nourish minds through contact with nature through a range of different programmes including nature therapy in dementia care, an armed forces programme for addressing post-traumatic stress disorder, the Kindness programme for children and a range of publications such as a self-help journal. A How to Do Nature Therapy workshop is also available marketed on a national basis.

This social enterprise was developed from the passion of its Founder Director, Dr Kim Brown. Kim is a qualified nurse, midwife and teacher. The resources and programmes offered by this organisation grew from her research for a Doctorate in Health Sciences.

The company requested funding to support the start-up of the new business through vehicular conversion.

Dr Kim Brown, Founder Director of Nature Therapy, said:

Thanks to a grant from Solent LEP we have been able to create a mobile nature therapy workshop. As a new start up delivering nature therapy projects and programmes, this is an incredibly valuable resource for in helping to move forward with our small not for profit social enterprise. The mobile unit, which is a converted horsebox, provides us with a base where we have all our resources to hand.  It has effectively cut the costs of venue hire for our programme delivery meaning we can provide more cost effective services and it has helped us expand our delivery.  For example we are now an accredited centre with Sports Leaders UK for delivering a qualification in Expedition Leadership where the mobile resource is easily taken to any locality we are working in to provide a comfortable base to return to.  The grant fund has also helped expand our delivery outside of the Isle of Wight as we are able to take the mobile and its accompanying contents to the wider Solent area. We also plan to use the mobile nature therapy workshop to attend fayres and major events where we can promote the work we do on nature therapy and create an income from sales which will help support delivery of our projects. Being able to expand our small enterprise in this way has meant we have been able to create employment. We hope to continue on this success by building Nature Therapy CIC into a well-recognised and respected not for profit enterprise.  Thanks to Solent LEP for their help in working towards this vision.