‘I wanted to dare to fail because that’s the only way you find out what you’re capable of’
I have spoken quite a lot about Belinda Kirk’s book ‘Adventure Revolution: The Life-changing Power of Choosing Adventure‘ in previous posts. It explores why adventure is essential for wellbeing and looks at personal narratives, research and the latest scientific discoveries in neuroscience and behaviour. Belinda has spent decades leading expeditions all over the world, including personal challenges, youth development expeditions, biological research and remote filming trips for the BBC. She has a focus on exploring the links between adventure and wellbeing and helps connect adventurers (explorers connect), researches and outdoor provision providers.
As soon as I finished the book, I started doing some research and found that Belinda would soon be hosting the next Adventure Mind conference and I bought my ticket straight away. It was going to be held in Yorkshire, down the road from my parents, and fell in this period where I’m between jobs. In a way, it felt like it was meant to be.
I have such a passion for promoting the positive impacts of adventures and being outdoors and I hoped that this conference would give me some inspiration as to areas to focus on in the future. I want to start to use the platforms and communities I’ve built, to help get more people out and adventuring – whether it be big or small.
The Conference
I wasn’t really sure what to expect or the backgrounds of the other people attending, but I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to mix with likeminded people, learn about current research in the adventure space and hopefully, find some inspiration for the next steps in my career.
The event was focussed on ‘Adventure for Wellbeing’ and explored the importance of adventure in relation to wellbeing, performance and mental health. It was spread across two days and included a mix of speakers, activities and practical information on getting involved, collaborating and starting to make a difference.
Us outdoors folk know the benefits of adventure from out first hand experiences, but when it comes to helping influence policies and decision makers, hard evidence is needed. There was a real focus on how academics and outdoor professionals can come together to conduct the research and gather the evidence needed to help make positive changes in this space.
The Speakers
Hearing Belinda speak so passionately about the positive impacts she’s seen from adventures, was incredibly inspiring. From leading expeditions through the jungle at 26 to being a key part of the BBC series ‘Beyond Boundaries’, Belinda has helped to facilitate adventure’s for so many. She had brought together a whole host of speakers and academics sharing their experiences and research. Two of the presentations that connected with me most were:
Social Prescribing – Bryan Jones & Samantha Pywell (University of Central Lancashire)
Social prescribing, also known as ‘community referral’, is a way in which primary care professionals (such as GPs and nurses) can refer people to a range of local, non-clinical services to support their health and wellbeing.
One arm of this is Green Social Prescribing – which was particularly relevant for the audience in the room. This is centered around the impact of being outdoors, on people’s mental and physical health, with individuals being linked to nature-based interventions and activities, such as local walking for health schemes, community gardening and food-growing projects. I was completely unaware, but in 2020 the Environment Secretary announced a £4 million investment for a cross-government project aimed at preventing and tackling mental ill health through green social prescribing.
There is currently a lot of research taking place in this space to help determine the costs, resource implications and cost-effectiveness of social prescribing. Personally, I think it’s such an incredible initiative that needs supporting. Not only does it help to reduce waiting times and take the pressure off Dr’s, but it also has the potential to reduce or remove the need for certain medications, by helping to treat the cause of things such as anxiety, rather than just treating the symptoms.
In the long term plan laid out by the NHS, they stated there would be 1000 social prescribing link workers in place by 2021 and at least 900,000 people being referred to social prescribing in 2023/24. A key part of this is ensuring that link workers are aware of the services available in their area. If you are a provider and want to make your product or services known, you can find out more information on how to join the local directory on the NHS website.
New Research: How can Adventurous Play Reduce Anxiety in Children? – Helen Dodd (University of Exeter)
Studies have show that between 2004 – 2017 there was a 49% increase in emotional disorders in 5-15 year olds, with this having increased again substantially since then.
Having worked in both early years and a primary setting, this one was pretty close to my heart. I have seen first hand the positive impact on children of adventurous play, so it was great to see insights into this research. Helen describes adventurous play as ‘child-led play where children experience subjective feelings of excitement, thrill and fear; often this occurs in the context of age-appropriate risk taking.’ She talked about how adventurous play gives children an opportunity to learn about uncertainty, fear, arousal and coping and how these experiences may provide vital learning opportunities that can help prevent the development of anxiety.
However, research shows that over the past few decades there has been a decline in the amount of time Western children spend outside, one of the many reasons for this is the increased emphasis on keeping children safe from harm. There are several places that are trying to increase the amount of time that children spend in adventurous play, such as the New Zealand’s’ ‘School Without Rules‘ and Denmark’s ‘Forest Kindergarten’, but there is still a long way to go.
One of the points of discussion was around the 20% of the school day that children spend outside at ‘break time’ and how potentially this could be utilised to help facilitate adventurous play in a way that is accessible to all children.
Other Speakers included:
Martin Chester – Out of Adversity Comes Opportunity: Evolution of the Outdoor Sector
Gill Pomfret, Manuel Sand, Carola May & Janela Farkic – New Research: Motivations and Benefits of Adventuring
Dave Bunting & Chris Kay – How to Run an Expedition to Promote Personal Development
Diane Westaway – Mental health Recue Effects of Women’s Outdoor Tourism
John Allan – Understanding and Embedding Impact Through Adventure Learning, Co-adventuring for Change
The Activities
Throughout the conference there were activities and workshops taking place, which gave an insight into some of the different adventurous outlets that are available, as well as highlighting how therapies and programmes can be adapted and taken outdoors.
Reconnecting to a Post Covid World Through Parkour – Charlotte Boenigk: Charlotte is currently a final year PhD student, researching parkour for mental health. She has found that through physically engaging with their environments, participles can re-establish positive dialogue with themselves and their surroundings, bringing many of the benefits of outdoor activities to those in urban areas. She founded Free Your Instinct, a charity which offers parkour to those with a recognised mental health need.
Excite and Delight Challenge Mindset Workshop (Abseiling) – Dave Gallagher: Dave’s research focuses on how the brain adapts and thrives in challenging environments. He is a Mountain Leader, RYA Day skipper, technical SCUBA diver and certified in stress management and performance coaching. This workshop involved and introduction to the neurophysiology of stress management based on cutting edge research, including demonstrations of techniques such as mindfulness and breathing control – whilst being poised over the edge of a building!
Bushcraft Programmes to Improve wellbeing – Caspian Jamie: Caspian is the Lead Outdoor Therapist at The Therapy Adventure and Climbing Calm CIC, where his team specialise in the creation of award winning therapeutic outdoor and adventure programmes. This session looked at how we can adapt outdoor and adventure based programmes to enhance the benefits to mental health and wellbeing.
Wellbeing Walks – Kelvyn James
Walk and Talk – Ian Pitchford
Meet the Authors: An extended session with Q&A’s and small group discussions with a range of scientists, writers, campaigners and adventure practitioners who had published research in this area in the last 18 months.
My Takeaways
Attending this conferences pushed me further out of my comfort zone than I ever thought it would. I initially felt quite overwhelmed, being surrounded by so many inspiring people with amazing stories, who had been on epic adventures. I once again found the social aspect extremely difficult, especially explaining my current job(less) situation. However, I eventually settled in and spoke to many like-minded people, who ultimately made me feel so much more confident about this path that I’m on.
I have taken away so much from the last few days, though it’s going to take a little while to process it all. However, the key things I know I want to focus on and get involved in include:
- Looking at how I can utilise the platforms I have to support the Adventure Mind agenda and increase awareness about the research that has already been done around the connections between adventure and wellbeing (as unfortunately my first hand account alone isn’t hard evidence!)
- Helping to connect all of the amazing adventure enthusiasts I know, with the incredible research that’s being done in this area
- Looking for local opportunities to get involved in supporting projects that bring adventure to new audiences
A huge thank you to Belinda for putting together such a great event. If you want to find out more, or are interested in attending the next conference, you can check out the Explorers Connect website
Happy Adventuring x
Lisa Outdoors 