A study on community gardening as a social prescribing program

Background. Sustaining well-being challenges people with serious mental health issues. Community gardening is an occupation used to promote clients’ well-being, yet there is limited evidence to support this intervention. Purpose. This paper examines how facilitated community gardening programs changed the subjective well-being and social connectedness of people living with mental health issues. Method. A community-based participatory research approach and qualitative methods were used with 23 adults living in supported housing and participating in supported community gardening programs. A constructivist approach guided inductive data analysis. Findings. Participation in community gardening programs enhanced well-being through welcoming places, a sense of belonging, and developing positive feelings through doing. The connection to living things and responsibility for plants grounded participants in the present and offered a unique venue for learning about gardening and themselves. Implications. Practitioners and service-users should collaborate to develop leadership, programs, places, and processes within community gardens to enhance well-being.

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Planting seeds of community-engaged pedagogy: Community health nursing practice in an intergenerational campus-community gardening program

Nurse Education in Practice ◽

10.1016/j.nepr.2021.102980 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 51 ◽

pp. 102980

Author(s):

Sonya L. Jakubec ◽

Joanna Szabo ◽

Judy Gleeson ◽

Genevieve Currie ◽

Sonya Flessati

Keyword(s):

Community Health ◽

Nursing Practice ◽

Campus Community ◽

Community Gardening ◽

Engaged Pedagogy ◽

Community Health Nursing ◽

Health Nursing

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Weathering the storm: A qualitative study of social prescribing in urban and rural Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic

SAGE Open Medicine ◽

10.1177/20503121211029187 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

pp. 205031212110291

Author(s):

Alison Fixsen ◽

Simon Barrett ◽

Michal Shimonovich

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Third Sector ◽

Community Services ◽

Clinical Approach ◽

Community Based ◽

Online Delivery ◽

Social Distancing ◽

Social Prescribing ◽

And Shifts

Objectives: The non-clinical approach known as social prescribing aims to tackle multi-morbidity, reduce general practitioner (GP) workload and promote wellbeing by directing patients to community services. Usual in-person modes of delivery of social prescribing have been virtually impossible under social distancing rules. This study qualitatively examined and compared the responses of three social prescribing schemes in Scotland to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We interviewed a theoretical sample of 23 stakeholders in urban and rural social prescribing schemes at the start of COVID-19 pandemic. Follow-up interviews with a representative sample were conducted around 10 months later. Interviewees included social prescribing coordinators (SPCs) GPs, managers, researchers and representatives of third sector organizations. Interview transcripts were analysed in stages and an inductive approach to coding was supported by NVivo. Results: Findings revealed a complex social prescribing landscape in Scotland with schemes funded, structured and delivering services in diverse ways. Across all schemes, working effectively during the pandemic and shifting to online delivery had been challenging and demanding; however, their priorities in response to the pandemic had differed. With GP time and services stretched to limits, GP practice-attached ‘Link Workers’ had taken on counselling and advocacy roles, sometimes for serious mental health cases. Community-based SPCs had mostly assumed a health education role, and those on the Western Isles of Scotland a digital support role. In both rural or urban areas, combatting loneliness and isolation – especially given social distancing – remained a pivotal aspect of the SPC role. Conclusion: This study highlights significant challenges and shifts in focus in social prescribing in response to the pandemic. The use of multiple digital technologies has assumed a central role in social prescribing, and this situation seems likely to remain. With statutory and non-statutory services stretched to their limits, there is a danger of SPCs assuming new tasks without adequate training or support.

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The idea of community and its practice: Tensions, disruptions and hope in Glasgow’s urban growing projects

The Sociological Review ◽

10.1177/0038026120982272 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 69 (2) ◽

pp. 484-499

Author(s):

Helen Traill

Keyword(s):

Social Life ◽

Participant Observation ◽

Community Gardening ◽

Conceptual Approach ◽

The Everyday ◽

Community Theory ◽

Communal Space ◽

Work Done ◽

Do So

The question of what community comes to mean has taken on increasing significance in sociological debates and beyond, as an increasingly politicised term and the focus of new theorisations. In this context, it is increasingly necessary to ask what is meant when community is invoked. Building on recent work that positions community as a practice and an ever-present facet of human sociality, this article argues that it is necessary to consider the powerful work that community as an idea does in shaping everyday communal practices, through designating collective space and creating behavioural expectations. To do so, the article draws on participant observation and interviews from a community gardening site in Glasgow that was part of a broader research project investigating the everyday life of communality within growing spaces. This demonstrates the successes but also the difficulties of carving out communal space, and the work done by community organisations to enact it. The article draws on contemporary community theory, but also on ideas from Davina Cooper about the role of ideation in social life. It argues for a conceptual approach to communality that does not situate it as a social form or seek it in everyday practice, but instead considers the vacillation between the ideation and practices of community: illustrated here in a designated community place. In so doing, this approach calls into focus the frictions and boundaries produced in that process, and questions the limits of organisational inclusivity.

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Current understanding and implementation of ‘care navigation’ across England: a cross-sectional study of NHS clinical commissioning groups

British Journal of General Practice ◽

10.3399/bjgp19x705569 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 69 (687) ◽

pp. e675-e681 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Stephanie Tierney ◽

Geoff Wong ◽

Kamal R Mahtani

Keyword(s):

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Descriptive Statistics ◽

Sectional Study ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Long Term Conditions ◽

Health And Wellbeing ◽

Medical Needs ◽

Social Prescribing ◽

Evaluation Of Care

BackgroundCare navigation is an avenue to link patients to activities or organisations that can help address non-medical needs affecting health and wellbeing. An understanding of how care navigation is being implemented across primary care is lacking.AimTo determine how ‘care navigation’ is interpreted and currently implemented by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs).Design and settingA cross-sectional study involving CCGs in England.MethodA questionnaire was sent to all CCGs inviting them to comment on who provided care navigation, the type of patients for whom care navigation was provided, how individuals were referred, and whether services were being evaluated. Responses were summarised using descriptive statistics.ResultsThe authors received usable responses from 83% of CCGs (n = 162), and of these >90% (n = 147) had some form of care navigation running in their area. A total of 75 different titles were used to describe the role. Most services were open to all adult patients, though particular groups may have been targeted; for example, people who are older and those with long-term conditions. Referrals tended to be made by a professional, or people were identified by a receptionist when they presented to a surgery. Evaluation of care navigation services was limited.ConclusionThere is a policy steer to engaging patients in social prescribing, using some form of care navigator to help with this. Results from this study highlight that, although this type of role is being provided, its implementation is heterogeneous. This could make comparison and the pooling of data on care navigation difficult. It may also leave patients unsure about what care navigation is about and how it could help them.

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