Green Care: A Conceptual Framework - Frisk i naturen

etween members of the community itself or with staff. Often this is
accomplished by people who have moved on through the programme
coming back and helping to nurture those earlier on in the process.
■■ Crops thrive best when subject to rotation or mixed planting in small
domestic settings: therapeutic community programmes often benefit
from ‘refreshing’ by changing the therapy ingredients (the mixture of
types of groups); different talents can be used from individual members
to contribute to the health and well being of the whole community.
Green care covers a wide range of projects, from gentle exposure to
animals or agriculture to intensive programmes of gruelling physical and
psychotherapeutic group activities. Therapeutic communities are much
closer to the ‘hard end’ of this spectrum, being essentially challenging
and never solely supportive. They are nearly always places where conflict
is expressed, explored and understood rather than avoided; this strong
challenging element is often known as “tough love”.
5.3 The natural setting for green care
Throughout this document it has been stressed that green care is a broad
concept that includes a range of different approaches, all of which utilise
the natural environment. Within the scope of that natural environment
there are many different individual settings that have been used for green
programmes, in fact, it is difficult to imagine a setting that has not been
used for one.
Whilst care farms and therapeutic gardens are clearly defined as areas
for green care others such as allotments or community gardens can be
overlooked. In fact, it is quite likely that some organised programmes on
allotments and community gardens are not seen as green care by their
workers or participants. It is also likely that many of those have not yet
heard of green care. Hence, it is useful to consider different approaches to
how green space can be used, particularly within the urban environment.
5.3.1 Accessible green space
Access to nature and greenspaces is essential for green care. There are
many reasons why people find it difficult to engage with nature, both
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