Nature’s way to deal with troubled youths (From Echo)

Nature’s way to deal with troubled youths

2:00am Thursday 25th March 2010 in Education By Louise Mackenzie

GETTING troubled youngsters away from their destructive environments and into the wilds of nature has a positive impact on their lives, according to research.

The TurnAround Project is a twelve month-long programme that takes young people with violent histories and who are falling into crime, out of their urban environment and into a remote place to learn how to work as a team, as well as giving them support when they return home.

The programme, created and managed by the Wilderness Foundation UK, has seen two pilot schemes complete the full twelve months. Essex University has assessed the data on the effect of wilderness experience on the young people.

There was an 80 per cent success rate for the 2007 pilot programme in returning participants to full time education and employment – rather than detention in a youth offending facility where many of the kids were headed without help. Data for the second is not yet available.

For the 2007 programme, the local youth offending team and the Connexions information and advice service in Southend, referred nine problematic youngsters to the project.

The young people who took part had problems with violence, crime and drugs, had been excluded from school and lacked self-belief.

They spent nine days on the Isle of Mull in Scotland, where they camped for three days in the mountains accompanied by a psychologist, outdoor experts and volunteer mentors from the local community.

Ali Moran, volunteer mentor said: “Everyone was very excited when we first arrived. They didn’t mind being in a remote place as they had been well briefed before arriving.

“We had to take away their mobile phones while camping which was quite traumatic for them as it was their only link to the outside world. As a mentor I was there to interact with them.

“As we got to know each other it was slow progression and one day the youngsters would make progress and the next they would retreat into themselves again and be defensive.

“It was sometimes a case of two steps forward and one back, one step forward three back. However the small changes gradually started to build up and they began to take part in the activities and enjoy them.

“There is something about being in nature that raises self esteem. It gives them a chance not to be surrounded by concrete and mod cons and to look at themselves and come to their own conclusions about things.

“I think it was liberating for them to see the beauty of nature because there is something about it that makes you happy to be alive.”

The visit was followed by monthly group activities and weekly one-to-one sessions ending with a five-day sailing trip, during which the young people act as the crew.

The project was monitored by the sport and exercise science department at Essex University, whose senior researcher is Dr Jo Barton.

Dr Barton measured each individual’s levels of self-esteem, and mood patterns over a three-year period.

The questionnaires revealed the wilderness therapy had a significant positive effect on self-esteem, and a smaller one on mood. Though the nine-month programme saw dips in self-esteem and mood, none of the young people returned to the low levels seen before the start.

The TurnAround Project was officially launched in 2009 and the hope is the research findings will help to convince young people’s agencies to pay for referrals, but to date, none have.

Dr Barton added: “The research was needed to justify the expense and to show the people who took part did not go back to their old ways.

The Wilderness Project is a charity, and funding for the twelve- month placement for one young person costs £7,500. However, the cost of a young person spending a year in detention is estimated to be nearly £50,000.”