The following letter, published in The Telegraph online,
is the result of the CEO of Tall Ships Youth Trust,
Richard Leaman, approaching William Hague and asking for
his support.
Could you consider influential people you know who might
feel passionately about the loss of outdoor learning
benefits and ask them to speak out?
UK Outdoors will shortly be publishing a proforma letter
for individuals and organisations to send to sponsors,
patrons, trustees, supporters etc. to make things easier
to approach potential influential champions.
Telegraph Online
Depriving young people of the great outdoors is an
utter tragedy
William Hague
19 October 2020 21:30
Rules restricting the work of outdoor education charities
are only adding to the great cost of lockdown Living as I
do in the rolling hills of mid Wales, I have something to
look forward to when I finish writing this column. I will
stretch my legs in the woods behind my house, look out for
animals preparing for winter, breathe in some wonderfully
fresh air, and, from the top of the nearest hill, gaze
across to distant Snowdonia. Like other people fortunate
enough to live in the countryside during the pandemic, I
find the daily enjoyment of it to be inspiring,
reassuring, and an essential part of keeping life in
perspective.
The benefits to the human brain of the outdoors and nature
have always been apparent, but are now recognised by
science. A recent study supported by the University of
Exeter Medical School found “strong and consistent
benefits for mental health and well-being … from exposure
to natural environments”. It found that socio-economic
inequality in mental well-being “has been shown to be
narrower among those who report good access to green or
recreational areas”.
So persuasive has this and other evidence become that the
Government has announced a pilot project on “green social
prescribing” to work out how to use nature to tackle
mental ill health. Funding is also being provided for
other work on helping people after the pandemic which
includes “healthy cooking, wildlife gardening, beekeeping”
and many other outdoor activities.
This is all modestly encouraging, and we might dare to
hope that it is the beginning of a realisation that we
need to bring thriving nature back into towns and cities
and allow our countryside to recover from the devastation
of misguided agricultural policies. But in the meantime, a
reasonable person might imagine that we could at least try
to combat the massive risks of rising mental health
problems and educational inequality in lockdowns by
getting more young people out into that great outdoors.
The horrifying fact, however, is that we have been doing
the exact opposite – closing down the entire sector of
outdoor education and experiences that each year delivers
immense benefits for tens of thousands of young people.
According to the trade body UK Outdoors, since March
children and young people have missed out on one and a
half million educational visits. They say that if this
continues, the sector stands to lose half its capacity
permanently, with 6,000 jobs already lost. While hotels,
boarding schools and hostels have been able to open during
the summer, outdoor education centres have been forced to
remain closed.
It will be an utter tragedy if we emerge from the pandemic
with a new consciousness of the need for such experiences,
only to find we have lost a large part of the provision
for them. The way to avert that is not to give even more
bailouts, but to get this particular sector up and running
as soon as possible, with some sensible precautions, for
the work that it does is desperately needed.
Take as an example the Tall Ships Youth Trust, an
excellent charity that takes vulnerable and disadvantaged
young people on week-long sailing trips. There is a good
deal of evidence that this charity’s work has major
positive effects on the youngsters involved, sometimes to
a life-changing extent. The vast majority say afterwards
that they are better at team working, communication, and
managing their feelings, and that their confidence and
self-esteem is improved. One study of the Tall Ships’ work
with 80 unemployed young people saw 98 per cent of them go
on into employment, education and training. Personal
testimonies include 16-year-olds from violent and
drug-addicted families whose lives and prospects have been
turned around. Yet now, just when people need such help
more than ever, every boat of the Tall Ships is tied up in
Portsmouth Harbour. The teenagers who ought to be learning
to sail, pulling on the ropes, experiencing the power of
teamwork and feeling the exhilaration of being on the sea,
are stuck instead in lonely or damaging situations.
This particular organisation has made every effort to
ensure that safe bubbles of young people and staff could
be created, and is prepared to invest in the new, more
rapid tests that are steadily becoming available. But the
current guidance is that only day trips can be undertaken
to outdoor centres, which immediately makes the vast
majority unviable or of little benefit.
Tall Ships are one example, but it is a story replicated
across many other successful charities. The Children’s
Trust offer short breaks for children with brain injuries
and neurodisabilities; Free to be Kids take young people
struggling with social and emotional difficulties on
adventures in the countryside; the Honeypot Children’s
Charity gives respite breaks for young carers in the New
Forest – these are just some of a wide range of
outstanding organisations whose residential courses have
now been shut down for many months.
Do we actually need to stop young people who are at little
risk of serious illness from being out together in the
mountains and on the sea? And even if we accept there is
some risk to the adults who supervise them, can’t we trust
them to minimise that risk while maintaining their
remarkable work?
Of course, with the current resurgence of Covid, and the
intense debates about local lockdowns and
circuit-breakers, opening up this vital sector will not be
on the minds of political leaders. But the day will come
soon when there is sufficient confidence in new, quicker
tests to allow for people to be told about things they can
do rather than always hearing of what they can’t. In the
coming weeks, outdoor education and training should be
ranked as a necessary part of keeping schooling going, and
be allowed to open up as much as the change of season
permits.
Whatever restrictions are necessary this autumn, we should
remember at all times the mounting human cost of lockdowns
and try to alleviate them wherever possible. We should
prioritise the most vulnerable young people in the
country, who are already more badly affected than their
peers. Unless we do, there will be no “levelling up” –
only higher mental illness rates, increased youth
offending and more crime. It is time, very soon, to say
that the balance of risk favours allowing some outstanding
charities and businesses to do what our society
desperately needs them to do.