Mental Health and the Outdoors

How would you describe your experiences with nature as a child? Growing up, maybe you had access to a park or a vegetable garden. Maybe you went bike riding with your friends around your neighborhood or explored the woods with your beloved dog. The benefits of having access to nature extends far beyond childhood and impacts a person’s mental wellness for many years after such experiences according to a recent article from the American Journal of Health Education.

Many of the children we serve at the Princeton-Blairstown Center come from historically marginalized communities and do not have the same access to safe natural environments and often pay for it with their mental health. Another factor that has dramatically impacted children’s mental health is COVID-19. Not only has COVID-19 made it more difficult for children to access nature – spending hours in front of screens inside and isolated – but it has resulted in a children’s mental health crisis. COVID-19 has escalated cases of domestic violence and alcohol consumption in the home which can lead to violence and abuse. It is clear that something must be done to support young people - especially those from historically marginalized communities.

After a systematic review of 35 papers, researchers concluded that access to nature made a difference in children’s and teens’ mental health. Outdoor education programs and access to nature have been proven to provide physical, psychological, and academic benefits to children including helping to regulate the body’s stress response, boosting self-esteem and self-expression, and promoting cooperation and communication with others. The authors continue, “Equitable access and opportunities to learn, succeed, and be active in nature for children of marginalized backgrounds, can result in so much more than improved physical fitness and enhanced cognition. Such engagement with natural environments can create an inclusive sense of belonging in outdoor spaces, which can potentially provide access to coping mechanisms with opportunities to prevent and mitigate wellness disparities that could disproportionately affect the mental health of urban youth.”  

Providing equitable access to transformative outdoor experiences is core to what we do every day at the Princeton-Blairstown Center and it is why we developed our Summer Bridge Program which is designed to serve 550-600 children from historically-marginalized communities – free of charge. Money and location can be huge barriers keeping children from experiencing the outdoors – and its mental health benefits.

For our non-Summer Bridge programming, we work with each group to meet them where they are around program costs because we believe that every child deserves to explore nature and reap the long-lasting mental health benefits that result from such experiences. It’s also the reason we are working to develop our Inside - Out program, designed to provide access and equity to middle school students from Trenton free of charge. The program provides six environmental education lessons during an overnight stay at our Blairstown Campus. Students are immersed in hands-on outdoor education that is aligned with state science curriculum standards. The program also includes two sessions designed to help students build their social-emotional skills, deepening their connections to other students, teachers, and the outdoors.

The Value of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in Difficult Times

Senior Program Manager, Ron Franco, leads SEL and STEM activities during Wilderness Leadership School.

As a former high school science teacher, I can tell you that there is always a lot to think about when it comes to planning lessons and managing a classroom. At the forefront of most “teacher-brains” is content: How should I teach this concept? When will I get to that before our standardized tests? Unfortunately, one of the things furthest from my mind was incorporating a comprehensive social emotional learning curriculum when I was trying to find the time, energy, and funds to include more projects; make sure my students did better on standardized tests; and scaffold lessons to suit individual talents and needs.  

COVID-19 has shown us that learning isn’t just about content. It is about feeling connected, being able to communicate, and having a safe space to feel a sense of purpose and belonging.

This post written by Emma García and Elaine Weiss of the Economic Policy Institute showcases why school policies and curricula need to change from focusing solely on content to putting social-emotional learning front and center. Staggering statistics including the fact that mental-health emergency room visits by middle- and high-school aged students have increased by 31% highlight how children need support to deal with their trauma, emotions, and grief.

When schools abruptly closed their doors for two weeks of “remote learning,” students and teachers thought they were in for a mini-vacation. But two weeks turned to four weeks and four weeks turned to four months and here we are, almost two years later still dealing with the turbulence of the pandemic. I tried to help my students cope by giving them hands-on assignments and sending personal emails and messages when they seemed to be falling behind or despondent. One student was a freshman in an honors biology class who was smart, cared about his academics, and provided insight into our daily conversations, until he lost his mom to COVID-19. When I sent an email after I learned of his mom’s passing, he replied that I was the only teacher to do so and that it really meant a lot to him. From then on, I made sure to email him occasionally to check in and give him the opportunity to talk even though I was not a counselor or social worker. I allowed him time and space to grieve and encouraged him to participate in class at a level that was comfortable for him.

The benefits of social emotional learning are undeniable. This brief written by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in collaboration with The National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention found that SEL programs can have big benefits. After analyzing over 200 studies of different school based SEL programs, they found that participants showed a 9% decrease in conduct problems, such as classroom misbehavior and aggression; a 10% decrease in emotional distress, such as anxiety and depression; a 9% improvement in attitudes about self, others, and school; a 23% improvement in social-emotional skills; a 9% improvement in school and classroom behavior; and an 11% improvement in achievement test scores.  

The Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC) believes so strongly that social emotional learning should be a priority that it is the basis for our mission. As we all continue to deal with the fallout of the pandemic, SEL programs are not only beneficial, but essential to students’ emotional and academic success. PBC is providing weekly SEL resources for teachers and educators to use in their classrooms or during virtual meetings to help students manage the additional ups and downs they have had to navigate since March 2020. These weekly emails are one way that PBC can provide teachers and others who work with young people with the tools to keep students connected to their peers and caring adults.

Part of a SEL activity provided by PBC to teachers via email during the pandemic

Champions Adjust!

It is the first month of a new year. Not just any year, either – a year following what we have all heard described repeatedly as: Unprecedented. Anomalous. Exhausting. Chaotic. As the “craziest year of our lives” requiring us all, in many senses of the word, to “pivot.”

Like every other individual and organization, all the forecasting and planning that we put together to map the year 2020 was immediately rearranged as the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic arose. Then, shuffled, rethought, and rearranged again as the worst-case scenarios we feared took hold, and reconfigured yet again when the pandemic persisted for many weeks and months, all the way up to today.

It is not a surprise that organizational course corrections are sometimes needed. That is why we track initiatives, priorities, and statistics, hold performance reviews, organize work plans, and create budgeting and maintenance forecasts. Often, small tilts of the wheel are enough to keep the plan moving along the track when circumstances change around us. However, the magnitude of the changes that occurred in such a dizzyingly short time frame posed significant hurdles for our entire staff, even without the backdrop of a global public health crisis.

But in 2020, every department rose together, again and again, to meet the (many) challenges PBC faced. When groups were barred from coming to our beautiful Blairstown Campus and meeting in person, program staff used their resourcefulness and ingenuity to create virtual programs for our students and online audiences. When classroom learning was abruptly moved online, and teachers and students shared the challenges and mental health impacts of this format, program staff and communications staff created a weekly SEL email for teachers that could be used in Zoom classrooms to enhance social connections and SEL skills while adhering to social distancing. Finance staff successfully applied for Federal Paycheck Protection Program loans and continually tracked and readjusted budgets to keep the organization fiscally sound. Maintenance staff scaled up their plans, tackling extensive repairs, deep cleanings, and other tasks that would ordinarily be too disruptive while students are using Campus facilities. Perhaps more amazing is that these changes were implemented successfully on top of the changes the pandemic created in many other facets of everyone’s lives.

The Senior Leadership Team meets each January to identify our organizational priorities and set the plan - and tone - for the coming year. In reflecting upon how the organization reacted and continues to adapt to the changing landscape, they came up with a working mantra for the year: Champions Adjust.

It is abundantly clear that large-scale changes for the Center, and in our personal lives, will continue until Covid is squarely in the rearview. Until then, we’ll adjust.

The Challenge Our Children Face

At this writing, the first Americans have received a COVID-19 vaccine outside of a clinical trial, and it looks as if we might be able to start a move toward some sense of normalcy at Blairstown. For the historically marginalized young people we work with, some sense of normalcy can't come too soon. 

As of December 3rd, more than 1.4 million children have tested positive for COVID-19, representing 12% of all cases.  Thankfully, COVID-19 associated hospitalizations and death are rare among children, but the long-term impact still needs to be studied.   

While COVID-19 may not be as physically debilitating for children as it is for adults, its impact on their mental health, access to food and housing, and educational opportunity is more than most of us can fully understand, particularly for the young people PBC works with in Newark, Camden, and Trenton. 

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 43% of parents living with children reported that they or a family member had lost a job or taken a pay cut due to the pandemic, including 62% of Hispanic families, 50% of black families, and 36.5% of white families. Fifty-two percent of low-income families reported job losses. 

Lower-income adults and families, like those we serve in Newark and Trenton, were particularly vulnerable to the financial impact of the virus. Only 23% had emergency funds set aside to cover three months of expenses in case of a job loss, illness, or economic downturn. Over 46% of low-income adults say they have had trouble paying their bills since the start of the pandemic and approximately 33% report they are having trouble paying rent or making mortgage payments.  

New Jersey food bank operators report that people in some places are waiting 2½ hours to get a bag of food. Soup kitchens and food pantries are reporting double, even triple, the normal traffic. Lines waiting for grab-and-go food packages form at dawn in some places and stretch for blocks. Food security programs are used to seeing seniors, veterans, the homeless, people with mental or emotional difficulties. During COVID-19 they are also seeing service workers, hospitality workers, teachers, nurses, construction workers, and professionals. 

With most schools remote due to high local infection rates, children who normally have access to free breakfast and lunches at school must get nutrition another way, further exacerbating food insecurity. When a student's basic needs for food, clothing, or shelter are unmet, it's almost impossible to learn. Adequate affordable housing is an ongoing problem in our state, where high housing costs abound, and the pandemic has only made the situation worse; on December 14th, NJ Spotlight News featured "19%" as their number of the day, representing the percentage of NJ adults with children who said they are afraid they won't make their next rent or mortgage payment. 

While most schools in Trenton and Newark found ways to get Chromebooks or computers to their students at the start of the pandemic, many students still don't have access to reliable internet for school work. A McKinsey study states that lower-income students are less likely to have access to high-quality remote learning or to a conducive learning environment, such as a quiet space with minimal distractions, devices they do not need to share, high-speed internet, and parental academic supervision. Many students in Trenton and Newark have parents who are essential employees who are unable to work from home, help their children navigate connectivity issues, or supervise their school work. 

A recent study from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine looked at 10 major US cities and found that in counties where the population was substantially non-white with a median income defined as $60,240, the COVID-19 death rate was more than nine times higher when compared to counties that are substantially white with the same median income. And the infection rate was nearly eight times higher for the more racially and ethnically diverse counties that authors called "more-poverty areas." What does this mean for PBC's students?  Many lost family members to the virus, and even more had family members become severely ill. This can lead to added stress, depression, and a sense of isolation for our students.

All of these factors make it critically important that our students have access to high-quality academic enrichment and a supportive peer group they can connect with to help them process the trauma they have experienced over the past year.  We will continue to provide virtual after school programs for some students and weekly SEL lesson plans for educators and youth workers. Additionally, we are beginning to plan for off-site programming that will take place in parks near where our students live so they can connect and learn together outdoors until COVID is eradicated.  

Thank you for helping us provide these much-needed opportunities to historically marginalized students. They have had a year that most of us cannot fully imagine.

Learning Leadership in the Outdoors

In a year full of unexpected detours, rethinking, and “firsts,” the Center will offer a fall semester of environmental education and outdoor skills instruction for the inaugural iteration of Wilderness Leadership School.

The Center’s natural setting is a perfect outdoor classroom; multiple distinct habitats enable a wide variety of STEAM activities and nature/ecology study.

Conceptualizing the program started when, over the summer months, hopes of students having a “normal” school year were dashed as the country experienced a brisk resurgence of the Covid-19 cases, including in places where schools tried re-opening for in-person instruction. Considering Governor Murphy’s decision to allow school districts to create remote and hybrid school day options for students as an opportunity for programmatic innovation, the PBC Program team put their heads together to create a new curriculum and unique outdoor learning experience for Fall 2020. 

Offered weekly for a full day’s worth of exploration and discovery, Wilderness Leadership School offers students ages 7-18 a chance to experience the Center’s Blairstown Campus as an outdoor classroom. After a full summer of practice with the Center’s Family Camp programs, PBC facilitators are ready to lead socially-distanced explorations of watersheds, forest ecology, or other environmental education topics each morning. After a balanced boxed lunch prepared in-house by Chef Bob, afternoon sessions will include outdoor competency and skill-building such as canoeing and kayaking, shelter- and fire-building, wilderness survival skills, orienteering, water safety, and adventure and climbing course instruction.

Last year’s Homeschool Program participants encourage one another on the ropes course.

“With the many different versions of what students’ school days will look like this fall, there was an opportunity to offer families a way to supplement to traditional instruction, while observing social distancing and providing an opportunity for safer peer-group interactions,” said Pam Gregory, President and CEO of the Center. “Our outdoor spaces have long been used for summer learning, so it seemed only natural they could be an asset at a time when gathering indoors is not advised.”

To learn more, to share this opportunity with students and families in your life, or to register, please visit the Wilderness Leadership School page.

Virtual Summer Bridge - A New Learning Adventure

Last month we shared the disappointing news that, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC) would be unable to welcome groups of students to the Blairstown Campus for our award-winning Summer Bridge enrichment program this year. As most Compass Points readers know, the PBC Summer Bridge program is designed to ameliorate the insidious “summer learning loss” that particularly affects children in under-resourced communities. What made this announcement even more painful was the knowledge that many children from these communities were already experiencing an academic crisis caused by the hasty, but necessary implementation of online instruction and the broader economic and social distress caused by the pandemic. In fact, a recent study by the Brookings Institution reports that “these additional stressors suggest that the COVID-19 slump might have even more impact on children from under-resourced homes than the [typical] summer slump.” For these reasons (and many more), PBC is collaborating with two Summer Bridge partner organizations, Mercer Street Friends (MSF) and the Center for Child and Family Achievement (CCFA), to deliver an engaging blend of virtual STEAM, literacy, and social emotional learning programming to nearly fifty children throughout the month of July.

Students began the program developing a shared “Full Value Contract” that would govern interpersonal relationships in the virtual classroom space – the same way that we would help groups self-govern if they were physically present on Campus. Students then worked both alone and together to solve an array of STEAM and SEL challenges designed to foster critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and responsible decision-making, while strengthening their social awareness and building strong relationships with their facilitators, chaperones, and peers. Divided into small groups of fewer than ten students, each cohort was led by a trained PBC facilitator and adult chaperone from the partnering organization. This favorable “classroom” ratio enhanced personalized instruction and accountability, resulting in active student engagement during each two-hour synchronous learning session and additional hour of daily asynchronous programming.   

A screenshot of PBC Facilitator Makela reviewing the projects of students from CCFA during their Virtual Summer Bridge session.

During the program, participants contemplated scenarios such as being “lost at sea”, collaboratively prioritizing a list of life saving supplies to be loaded into their imaginary “lifeboat”. They designed and built boats using everyday household items and then developed a sales pitch to promote their model against the “competition.” They designed and played musical instruments built from found objects. They germinated and dissected seeds. They nurtured plant life for an indoor garden. They built and tested catapults, calculating the trajectories of objects launched (safely!) across their bedrooms. They made “Friendship Bracelets” and learned about indigenous American’s culture. They wrote poetry in several formats, including haiku. They dissected owl pellets, watched nature videos, and recorded their own insights in a nature journal. And perhaps most importantly, throughout the program students reflected on their progress and celebrated accomplishments. Our hope is that they also were reminded, discovered, or re-discovered that learning can be fun; working together trumps going it alone; and that there are people beyond the walls of their home who care about their well-being and success.

The feedback from our partner organizations has been uniformly positive. Wanda Webster Stansbury, Executive Director of CCFA remarked, “I want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone for an exceptional experience for all of the students who attended the Princeton-Blairstown virtual summer program. Today I enjoyed participating in sessions conducted by Makela, Handy and Tabs—you were all fantastic and the activities were fun and informative!”  Chelsea Jenkins, Program Manager for MSF, expressed her appreciation for the “original, creative, and engaging curriculum PBC developed for this virtual experience.” While all agree that nothing can truly replace a trip to PBC’s 264-acre outdoor classroom, our Trenton partners were grateful for the opportunity to work with our talented staff to provide meaningful programming that activated and challenged young minds and strengthened community bonds in these troubled times.

In designing and delivering the Virtual Summer Bridge program, the PBC staff lived the philosophy that guides our daily work with young people—growth occurs when we stretch beyond our comfort zone. While 2020 will undoubtedly be remembered for many things, our hope is that the students from CCFA and MSF will look back on this unusual summer and be inspired by PBC staff who put their own 21st Century skills to work to provide a fun and enriching experience. With the continued support of our generous donors, PBC remains committed to providing the very best in experiential and environmental programming—by any means necessary—until all can safely return to our beautiful campus in the woods.

Reimagining Summer Bridge Puts 21st Century Skills to the Test

Virtual Summer Bridge…it’s in the bag!

Some examples of items to be included in the “PBC in A Bag” totes - Snacks, Stem and art supplies, books, a Summer Bridge tee shirt, and more!

No, seriously – in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, Summer Bridge students will not be on Campus at PBC this year. But for those community partners willing to take a virtual learning journey with us, PBC will offer a Virtual Summer Bridge program throughout the summer via a mix of real-time and self-guided offerings, with all of the materials needed to complete planned activities (along with age-appropriate books, snacks, tee shirts, and other swag) delivered to participants in a PBC tote bag.

In conversation with our partner organizations, it was clear that hosting Sumer Bridge in this virtual format would require extra effort to ensure that students had a chance to truly remain engaged. It had to be expertly tailored to the needs of students who might already be struggling with, confused by, or just plain burnt out on distance learning. We continue to hear that it was a long, confusing, and often-bumpy experience for students, parents, and faculty as they navigated the challenges of teaching and learning in the unfamiliar world of virtual instruction required in the midst of a global pandemic.

With this in mind, the PBC Program Team did significant research and planning to develop the Virtual Summer Bridge curriculum that incorporates a variety of check-ins, challenges, creative outlets, brain breaks, and games. At the same time, the Program Team is preparing to spend time far outside of their own comfort zones by facilitating positive group dynamics and hands-on learning from many physical miles away.

21st Century Skills Illustration.

Courtesy of Battelle for Kids - p21.org

While it certainly isn’t the spring or summer that any of us had hoped for at the beginning of the year, it has repeatedly underscored that young people and adults all need to spend time developing and honing their 21st Century skills. Critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, technology literacy, and flexibility are some of the first things that come to mind when thinking about what we have all needed to manage the stressors and dynamic environment of the present – and future.

A Summer for the History Books

If you’ve been following PBC on social media, you likely know that for the first time since 1945, PBC will not be running a summer program at our Blairstown Campus.

PBC’s Great Lawn, normally teeming with students and chaperones, has been quieter than at any time in our collective memory due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

This decision to not have a summer season for the first time in 75 years is disappointing for all of us. Earlier this year, the Board of Directors voted to suspend programming from early March through the end of May in an effort to flatten the curve of the virus. Now, it is clear that it would be impossible for us to responsibly provide a safe environment this summer for students, chaperones, and staff while still offering the kind of transformative experiences that Blairstown is known for.

Young people who spend a summer week at Blairstown participating in our educational and adventure-based, experiential programming leave with skills and memories that last a lifetime. We remain committed to welcoming students and chaperones back to our campus as soon as we can safely do so. In the meantime, our staff, who have dedicated their professional lives to serving young people in the outdoors, is now producing content that can be delivered remotely, including several weeks of virtual Summer Bridge programming. While it is not the same as working at our beautiful and historic Blairstown site with young people from under-resourced communities, it still allows us to provide them with the social-emotional support they may so desperately need.

The porches and chairs at Egner Lodge are quiet and empty, awaiting the day when students can safely return.

Although COVID-19 may have caused us to cancel our regular on-site programming for much of 2020, it cannot cancel the incredibly strong community of current and former participants, current and former staff, and PBC donors. We all share a deep love and respect for this remarkable place that has taught us so much about ourselves, the natural world, and the crucial 21st century skills that have helped us be better citizens, family members, workers, and students.

We look forward to when we can once again welcome students and chaperones back to our Blairstown Campus for our regular programming. In the meantime, we are offering the opportunity for small family groups to join us for a physically-distanced week on Campus in one of our well-equipped cabins or lodges. Family Camp is available on a limited first-come, first-served basis. You can find more information here.

The Princeton-Blairstown Center has been here for more than 110 years because we have remained true to our mission. And we expect to be around for another century providing mission-driven programs to some of the most underserved young people in our communities.