Young people who had experienced trauma showed positive mental health changes from psychosocial interventions situated in the natural environmentInterventions in the natural environment is an emerging practice in therapeutic programs for children and young people who have experienced trauma. Related research on such programs, however, is scant. This review sought to gain a better understanding of how nature is used in psychosocial interventions with young people who have experienced trauma and the impact of these interventions on young people’s mental health.
Five key terms (trauma, young people, natural environment, mental health and psychosocial intervention) and six databases were used in conducting a search for relevant literature. From the resulting 5,425 records, only ten papers met the inclusion criteria. Each of the included articles (1) focused on therapeutic psychosocial interventions situated in or used the natural environment, (2) identified mental health outcomes from the interventions, (3) were published from 2007 to 2018 in a peer-reviewed journal, and (4) included young people aged ten to twenty-four who had been diagnosed with PTSD and/or had experienced a traumatic event.
Four of the studies were from the USA, three from Spain, two from Australia and one from Israel. The psychosocial interventions employed in the studies included equine and animal therapies, farm-stay interventions, weekend camps, Residential Treatment Centres and wilderness experiences. Some of the therapeutic interventions were grounded in trauma-informed practice; others appeared to address trauma symptoms (versus specifically stipulating that the intervention was trauma-informed). Various scales were used to measure a range of mental health outcomes. The number or participants in the studies ranged from 9 to 231, with an overall total of 694. For most of the studies, the number of participants was between 20 and 50. The studies included in the review used a range of methods, some lacking rigor, with only half using a control group and none examining changes (or maintenance of changes) over time.
The included studies reported positive changes across different dimensions of mental health, including reduced psychological distress and behavioral issues and improved psychosocial adaptation or functioning. While the papers foreground the impact of the interventions, the impact of the natural environment settings on outcomes was not examined. Thus, it is unknown the degree to which nature was a key component of any of the studied interventions and it is unclear whether the environment influenced the outcomes of the studies.
The authors note that the small number of studies available suggests that research has lagged practice and use of therapeutic interventions in or with nature for young people experiencing trauma are therefore unlikely to be "evidence-based." However, the findings of this review are generally positive and should encourage further research on psychosocial interventions situated in the natural environment. Social workers can also be encouraged by the possibilities of interventions in the natural environment adding a new dimension to the work that they do in promoting human health and well-being.
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