Fur, Dirt and Leaves..and How They Help You! by Sky

Hi! I’m Sky, an artist and cat mother.

I’m very interested in nature and animal care, which is why I volunteer for Stepney City Farm, a local urban Farm in Tower Hamlets, east London.

In addition to this I’m also a citizen social scientist, and have just completed a project about health and wellbeing with other care -experienced young people in my local area. This zine is all about my research.

I myself particularly enjoy working with, and learning about, how to care for all different animals. I have a lot of struggles with anxiety, especially when it comes to social activities.

This can cause me to become isolated, which in turn can make me feel quite lonely. But being with nature helps me deal with this, which is why my chosen research topic of spending time in nature and with animals is so important to me.

Going to the farm is a great help in getting me outside around people who I know care about me, so I’m not isolated at home alone. Even in London’s densest borough you can feel alone, and for many people nature can be the solution.

This is Marshmellow, my little fur baby.

She helps me a lot in my everyday life and gives me so much joy. She’s great to have around on days when I can feel alone and isolated from the world. She gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning, as she will yell at me until I get up, to feed her! But it still helps.

She knows when I’m upset or in pain too and will always check on me, for example one morning I was in a lot of pain and she immediately came over and started making biscuits (when animals knead, or “make biscuits” it’s usually a sign that they’re happy, content, and affectionate) on my chest... her purrs were so comforting.

She does drive me insane some days, waking me up at ridiculous times at night, scratching at my door trying to get out to mate with the other cat... she really wants kittens!

But I wouldn’t change her one bit... she’s perfect.

Many of these citizen science projects are for the ‘natural sciences’ where people are involved with studying the natural world around them. For this project however we are involved in ‘social science’ meaning that we are researching the human world around us.

We have also been involved earlier in the process, which in research is called ‘co-creation’. The citizen ‘social’ scientists have been involved in all levels of the project, from designing the research to analysing the data, and have been paid for their work in the project team.

Citizen science is used in a wide range of areas of study, including ecology, biology, conservation, health and medical research, astronomy, media, and communications and information science,

There are lots of these projects that you can get involved in if you would like to become a citizen scientist. In particular there are lots of nature-related citizen science projects, such as the Big Garden Birdwatch. This has been going on for over 40 years with over half a million people taking part. The aim is to monitor trends in birds to understand how they are doing, and be alerted with any worrying numbers as soon as possible.

Completing Research with Social Anxiety

Due to having social anxiety, doing interviews would have been very difficult for me, so I started with making an online survey instead, with the questions covering animals, green spaces and city farms. This was sent out through the newsletter at Stepney City Farm.

Then we went on a trip to the farm where Susy, the farm’s Community Programme Manager showed us around, talking about the animals and the farm’s history. I wanted to know more so sent over an email to her asking her opinion on how the farm benefits local people and the volunteers.

One thing that does come naturally to me is drawing. I do a lot of fine art, mainly digital works using a drawing tablet. I tell everyone that words don’t come easy to memy mind makes pictures instead,

making it very hard to write. But ask me the same question when I can draw it and I will be able to give you a much better answer. Drawing is my life it helped me throughout my teen years when dealing with depression, allowing me to get my emotions out in a healthy and productive way.

Throughout this course my anxiety was a massive struggle and made me very quiet which the staff clearly found challenging. There were a couple of these instances where I almost quit entirely, but I made it all the way to the end because I didn’t want to quit as I thought I would regret it.

I think avoiding in-person interviews works with individuals dealing with anxiety, allowing them to gather the information without triggering attacks. Doing online surveys also works great for avoiding in-person interactions and it also gave me time to do other things as it got done passively.

I think it is important for researchers to have a gentle approach as from experience even be- ing a little forceful can make someone very uncomfortable and even scared to carry on. People have complex lives that can get in the way of getting work done from home, so it would always be good to ask before thinking not working is due to low motivation.

What I heard....

One reason I think that parks and farms are important is that there aren’t many places in Tower Hamlets where you can go for free, that gets you outside in nature. One of the people that answered by survey said - “it helps break the monotony of being in the house 24/7. If it wasn’t for my little park, I’d never get out”. This shows the importance of parks, because Tower Hamlets is a very busy place, but often people spend a lot of time indoors isolated.

I also asked if nature helped feelings of stress I had most people agree that yes it very much does. Someone said that nature helps them achieve “less stress, better sleep and clearer thinking.” Another said that “each time I’m in nature I feel at peace, I feel happy and relaxed, energetic and connected.” Another said... Being in nature helps reduce my anxiety as it allows me to focus on something and spend time in a really cool environment, away from all the stress.

When I volunteer at the farm I mostly work with the rabbits and ferrets in there small ‘furries’ section. I do enjoy when people come by when I’m in with the ferrets, people love them when they’re being goofy using me as a climbing frame! I also bring the ferrets out for some people. Once I had an autistic boy who really didn’t wanna leave, he loved watching them so I brought one of the ferrets out for him to pet, he was so happy alongside his mother.

Another part of my volunteering includes cleaning up the enclosures of waste, and replacing there bedding. Used bedding gets taken to the compost where it slowly becomes great soil for the community gardeners to use to grow all kinds of vegetables.

Six reasons why city farms are so important:

For my research I interviewed the farm’s Community Manager, who has been very supportive of me and the Green Care group. I asked her why she believes places like Stepney City Farm are so important to the community, and these were her six key points:

1 - In general, we know that spending time outside improves mental and physical health. There is a lot of evidence showing that time spent in nature reduces anxiety and depression, and that physical activity and the better air quality on the farm is supportive for people with chronic health conditions such as diabetes, COPD and cardiovascular issues.

2 - Getting involved in physical jobs such as composting, mucking out or weeding helps build people’s fitness, which is protective against physical and mental health conditions

3 - The more gentle jobs such as seed sowing, herbal tea making or planting out function similarly to a form of mindfulness that helps to reduce anxiety. We also offer twice weekly

meditation for our Greencare participants, supporting their mental health, which is informed by eco-therapy principles.

4 - The Greencare programme is designed to be accessible to people with physical disabilities, learning disabilities and mental health conditions, meaning that people who may not usually have access to these benefits are supported to engage through accessibility adjustments such as a quiet space, raised beds, kneeling pads and accessible tools.

5 - For many neurodivergent people, plants or animals may be a special interest, so having a space where those interests can be fostered is really important. Additionally, there is no pressure to engage with other people at the farm, some people chose to come only to speak to the animals they are in relationship withthis accepting environment is supportive for people with autism and other neurodivergences.

6 - Our community programme works with 13 groups supporting local people who experience systemic marginalisation, to ensure that there is a diverse community at the farm that is inclusive of people who may have less access to nature due to systemic oppression.

Lessons for Local Authorities:

As you can see from my zine, many people agree that nature and animals help a lot more than most people think, and places like city farms are especially important. For me being close to nature is essential for my wellbeing. It keeps me social and within my anxiety limit.

So how did I get involved with the farm in the first place? Well I have to admit it wasn’t because of my local authority or social workers. I was independently looking for volunteering work for something fun to do, and I just looked for my closest farm with my mum. In my opinion the council currently doesn’t do enough events for young people that work for those with anxiety. When I have tried going to council events for care leavers there are often way too many people in such a small space, so I spent the whole time hyperventilating. Sometimes I leave and regret ever going. It works for many care leavers, but not everyone has the same idea of ‘fun’, and what can be enjoyable for one person can be overwhelming for another.

I think the council should do events with anxiety in mind. For people like me this means making sure PA’s (personal advisors) ask the young person to join the event with as much notice as possible, and full information about the event so there are fewer surprises. Having a smaller group of people and picking a more calm activity would be great. This would help both people with anxiety and different kinds of neurodivergent individuals.