Nature Immersion Course for GPs - 21-22 October 2021

Overview

The Tamar Faculty and the Hazel Hill Trust are delighted to be running this two day nature resilience immersion course with overnight stay. It will offer a different way to gain new insights and skills and to raise your resilience and nourish your wellbeing.

The course is being held at a farm located in the heart of Dartmoor, surrounded by both farmland and wilderness. Workshops will be held outside.

Overnight accommodation and meals will be provided.

RCGP members – £100.00
Non-members – £250.00

Course description

The impact of prolonged overload and the stress of facing ever-rising demands with shrinking resources calls for new creative responses. Join Us! Be part of the first ever RCGP Nature Immersion for GPs – a different way to gain new insights and skills, to raise your resilience and nourish your wellbeing.

In collaboration with a team of leaders and specialists in the field of nature connection for wellbeing, we are delighted to bring you this pioneering RCGP nature resilience immersion course with overnight stay.

Launched at the RCGP National Conference in 2019, and postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic, this two-day immersive course, delivered on Dartmoor, will offer individuals the opportunity to reconnect with the natural world in a safe, supported and facilitated environment.

This Nature Immersion course is leading the way for wellbeing for the NHS workforce. The two-day course will offer GPs the opportunity to develop skills that cultivate a sense of wellbeing, drawing upon the neurobiology of resilience & applying theory through experiential learning.

Never before has there been such urgent need for the restorative effects that nature has to offer, to be placed at the heart of recovery for frontline staff. This course will provide individuals with the space to reflect, learn and connect. To restore yourself as you take valuable time to be with nature. The workshops and activities are delivered mostly outdoors, and each offers the individual the opportunity to develop new ways of thinking and being for a sustainable future.

The venue provides a beautiful space for quiet retreat, away from the noise of an increasingly tech dependent world and into the wilderness of Dartmoor National Park. Tailored to GPs, the programme will include:

Practising simple techniques based on applied neurobiology, mindfulness and traditional sources which can be used in everyday work.
Learning about resilience from the woodland ecosystem, and practical tools for our own wellbeing and our teams.
Conservation work and physical activities together to de-stress, relax into the land and shift perspective.
An evening campfire circle for sharing, mutual support and insights on work stresses.
Processes and time to consider better approaches for tackling work challenges and systemic pressures.

This programme has been jointly developed by the University of Westminster Centre for Resilience and Hazel Hill Trust following four very successful pilot programmes with junior hospital doctors, psychiatrists and GPs. The Westminster Centre for Resilience has over 20 years’ experience of helping medical professionals. Hazel Hill Trust is an educational charity and leader in nature-based resilience.

Speakers

Alan Heeks, Professor David Peters and Dr Lucy Loveday.

Programme

Thursday 21^st October
Arrival from 12.00, Lunch at 13.00
Workshops begin at 13.45
Supper at 19.30

Friday 22^nd October
Breakfast from 08.00
Workshops begin at 09.00
Course ends at 17:00

Covid-19 Safety

Although national restrictions have been lifted, we will be implementing additional precautions at this event to minimise the spread of Covid-19, these will be reviewed and updated in the run up to the event.

We will contact delegates nearer the time with details of what we will request of them during the event, e.g. for all delegates to wear face masks indoors. You can also request the risk assessment, outlining specific steps that we will be managing at this event.

Attendees will be asked not to attend if they feel unwell and/or have presented with a positive Covid-19 test within the previous 10 days, and attendees will be able to cancel (and receive a refund where applicable) up until the day of the event.

Venue

Brimpts Farm, Dartmeet, Devon, PL20 6SG

Bookings

To register for this event, please follow this link.

Nature Immersion Course for GPs: March 21-22, 2022

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The Facing the 2020s report As the pressures on all of us keep rising, we can see mounting discord about best priorities and solutions. One of the few topics on which almost everyone agrees is that increasing the resilience of local communities is getting ever more vital. This has been a focus of my work since 2012, so I’m offering an overview of some of my insights. As part of a project called Facing the 2020s, in 2012 I commissioned a substantial piece of action research on UK community resilience by Reos Partners, which included over thirty diagnostic interviews, extensive desk research, and exploratory workshops in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff with potential stakeholders, including national and local government, NGOs and community organisations. This blog is a summary of the insights I gained from this research. 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Wider participation: Many places don’t have a strong sense of community, and in most of those that do, only a tiny percentage of people participate actively in community matters. How could larger numbers of communities, and larger numbers of people, have a motivation to participate in community resilience, including ethnic and low-income communities? This is a crucial issue, which will become more acute amid the pressures ahead: it would be great to see a couple of enlightened large NGOs fund pilot projects and gathering of best practice to move this forward. Engaging local authorities: As funding for services has moved from central government to local authorities, many local authorities have worked to further devolve decision-making and budgetary decisions to local communities. This means that in some parts of the country, local communities are strongly engaged with the local authority, and structures exist to support these partnerships. 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