Green Social Prescribing – A Walsall Case Through Design-led Research
Green social prescribing (GSP) enables primary care professionals to refer people to nature-based activities, e.g. community gardening. GSP is a type of social prescribing scheme with a particular focus on nature. Within the specific context of COVID-19 lockdowns, local green spaces took on a new significance in many people’s lives.
There is ample evidence of wellbeing pathways linked to nature, and growing interest in supporting GSP as a non-clinical intervention to support mental wellbeing and public health. These activities have been clinically recognised as valid options to address mental, psychosocial, or socioeconomic issues, and enhance community wellbeing and social inclusion. As a result of the pandemic, linkages between nature and health and wellbeing were rediscovered and widely promoted.
In 2020, Public Health England highlighted the importance of local green (and blue) spaces as critical assets for maintaining and supporting wellbeing in local communities, and in the same year, £4m was invested to support a cross-government project aimed at tackling mental health through GSP test sites. However, GSP provision, like many forms of social prescribing, is in an early stage of development; the seven test sites, for example, are still running and await outcomes and learnings.