Creating greener, more sustainable mental health services in Wales: the value of co-production

This one off event, held at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, will be looking at creating more sustainable mental health services in Wales by looking at examples of where this has successfully done, and exploring the roles of co-production and social prescribing in this.  

Throughout the day there will be a focus on networking, especially between the healthcare and third sector organisations, with the aim of exploring opportunities for collaboration. 

Please find the draft programme below, some details are still to be finalised.

09:30am - 10am – Arrival

10am – Welcome

10am – 10:30am Creating Greener, more sustainable mental health services in Wales - Dr Kathryn Speedy, Dr Stuart D’Arch Smith

10:30am – 11am Getting back to nature, green prescribing, what is it, and does it work? - Prof Les Baillie

11am – 11:30am Reconciling nature and culture to improve health: creating community through craft, conservation and contemplation - Dr Will Beharrell

11:30am – 11:45am Coffee break

11:45am – 12:05pm Park Road Garden Project: The Practicalities and Benefits of Creating Green Spaces within Inpatient Mental Health Services - Bronwen Laxton, Owen Baglow

12:05pm – 12:30pm Seeds of Change, from Growing Together to Cae Felin Wellbeing Farm – Dr Luke Jefferies

12:30pm – 1:15pm Lunch and networking break

1:15pm – 1:45pm Green social prescribing, evidence and practice – Dr Becca Lovell

1:45pm – 2:15pm - Greener Practice Wales (Title tbc.) - Dr Sarah Williams

2:15pm – 3:15pm Gardens walk and talk

3:15pm – 3:30pm Coffee break

3:30pm – 4pm The value of co-production – Dr Kathryn Speedy

4pm- 4:15pm Thanks and closing remarks

Dr Will Beharrell

Dr William Beharrell is a doctor specialising in psychiatry in Powys, Wales.  He is the founder and CEO of the charity Fathom Trust, which creates community-led approaches to health and wellbeing based on craftsmanship, conservation and contemplation.

Dr Beharrell has degrees in Arabic with Persian as well as Medicine and spent the first part of his career working in the charitable sector in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Dr Becca Lovell

Dr Becca Lovell is based at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, WHO Collaborating Centre on Natural Environments and Health at the University of Exeter Medical School. Becca focuses on evaluating, synthesising and translating evidence of the links between nature and health for policy and practice.

She is interested in the multiple roles of the natural environment in determining equitable population health; ‘what works’ in nature-based health interventions and the delivery of nature-based solutions; and how a better understanding of the ways in which we as individuals and communities value natural environments could inform decision making and ways of working.

Professor Les Baillie

Professor Les Baillie is currently a  Professor of Microbiology in the  School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, of Cardiff University where he leads projects in the areas of combating anthrax, plant-based drug discovery and the use of nature to mitigate climate change and engage with communities. He is also the university’s green prescribing lead.

Prior to moving to Cardiff, Prof Baillie ran the US Navy’s biodefence medical countermeasures group in Washington DC. This followed a period spent at Porton Down developing a vaccine to counter the threat of Anthrax which was preceded by 10 years working in the NHS as a laboratory scientist.

Dr Luke Jefferies

Dr Luke Jefferies is the codirector of Clinical Psychology and Mental Health at Swansea University.  He first gained an interest in environmental psychology as an Undergraduate psychology student while studying at Surrey University. Surrey has the oldest environmental psychology course in the UK.

Dr Jefferies is a key member of the new Sustainable Wellbeing Research Group at Swansea dedicated to conducting cutting-edge research on how sustainable lifestyles can contribute to individual, collective, and planetary wellbeing.

Dr Kathryn Speedy

Dr Kathryn Speedy is a higher trainee in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, based in South Wales.

Having always had a love and concern for the environment, in 2020 Kathryn successfully applied for an RCPsych Green Scholarship and joined the RCPsych Planetary Health and Sustainability Committee and EcoCAMHS group.

Kathryn joined Green Health Wales in 2021 and brought together the Greener Mental Health Wales network. An interest in medical education has led Kathryn to projects aiming to raise awareness of the climate and ecological emergency amongst healthcare professionals and develop training and educational resources.

Kathryn is also a sustainability fellow at Health Education and Improvement Wales and the host of “Climate Smart Conversations”, an educational podcast about sustainable healthcare.

Owen Baglow

Additional resources for “Creating Greener, More Sustainable Mental Health Services in Wales: the value of co-production”

RCPsych Position Statements

RCPsych Position Statement on Climate and Ecological Emergencies

RCPsych Guidance

Delivering greener, more sustainable and net zero mental healthcare

Working well together: Evidence and tools to enable co-production in mental health commissioning 

RCPsych Sustainability webpage and top tips

Why is sustainability important?

Sustainability resources (includes links to webinars)

Sustainability day top ten tips

RCPsych EcoCAMHS (includes 5 minute video and Top Tips PDF)

The eco-crisis and CAMHS

Sustainability in QI

Sustainable Quality Improvement

Green Health Wales

Green Health Wales

Climate Smart Community on HEIW Gwella

Join the network today!

Climate Smart Conversations podcast, an educational podcast for anyone interested in creating a greener, more sustainable NHS in Wales

Spotify

Apple