Nature Wellbeing & Recovery projects
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Read about some of the amazing projects that have taken place at the Barn recently.
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Women in Empowerment & Recovery (WiRE) volunteering project.
WIRE volunteering project
WiRE support women suffering trauma-based addiction, by promoting personal growth and recovery through their connection with the land, each other, and themselves.
Women are offered opportunities to grow, harvest and cook food, participate in the rewilding project on the farm; as well as learning traditional crafts in willow weaving, foraging, preserving, pickling fruit & vegetables and herbalism.
The project is delivered through a two-stage model of tried and tested activities:
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Creating opportunities for women to be deeply connected to nature, through growing and creative activities, working collectively to recover the land.
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Providing learning, supported volunteering opportunities and external training to increase women’s potential for meaningful employment.
WiRE was set up directly by the women in addiction recovery who participated in the pilot project. WIRE is self-determined and self-supporting.
Women achieving stable recovery have opportunities to join the steering group and take more responsible roles on the farm. WiRE are in the process of developing a sustainable market-garden and recovery café, and a mobile horse-box shop.
The project is surrounded by a wider network of women’s community groups and recovery organisations in County Durham and across the North East, including: The FREE Woman’s Community, Recovering Justice Women’s Group, Her Circle, and the Rural Women’s Recovery Partnership (Northumberland).
We are continually in the process of widening our collaborations and networks, and conceive this as “power-weaving.”
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Quotes from women about the WIRE.
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''The Barn has been instrumental in my recovery journey, I absolutely love attending here, and I will be forever grateful to Nicki, Ellie and Jennie, and the rest of the team.''
"I’ve loved it every minute of it also it’s helped my healing and recovery immensely. I've learned a lot and love the women there and will miss it so much. It’s compassionate loving and being able to connect with nature is so soothing I found it to be very therapeutic and have huge amounts of love."
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"The sessions have helped my recovery and mental health massively. It has also helped my confidence."
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WiRE is currently funded by Community Fund Reaching Communities.
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Tina's Haven
Tina’s Haven is catalyst for emancipatory practice for birthmothers severed from their children by trauma-based addiction.
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The pioneering Tina’s Haven pilot project was delivered at The Barn at Easington from November 2022 to December 2023 in partnership with The Women’s Liberation Collective and Addictions North East.
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Twenty-one women in addiction recovery participated in the Tina’s Haven pilot project, and an additional seven in an eight-week follow-on nature-based volunteering project.
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The majority of these twenty-eight women (circa 70%) were birthmothers severed from their children by addiction.
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The intention of the Tina’s Haven project is to develop a transferable model of holistic and emancipatory praxis, that will bring about self-empowerment and solidarity among birthmothers severed from their children by trauma-based addiction.
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Quotes from women about Tina’s Haven:
“Realising that we matter. I deserve to be loved. I have a voice. I am important. I wouldn’t have known how to communicate this without Tina’s Haven.”
“There is a closeness that we all seem to have. The support from both the workers and the women. I have never felt pushed away, I have felt loved and wanted. We are in one group with the workers, one project. Everything feels heartfelt, done from the heart. It feels authentic and real.”
Dr Sue Robson founded and curated Tina’s Haven in memory of her beloved daughter Tina Robson, who died age 35 in temporary homeless accommodation having suffered trauma and addiction for most of her too short life. Tina left behind her adored son Vinnie.
Sue’s report “In Love and Anger” draws upon practice-based learning from the rich and dense evaluative findings of the pioneering and seminal Tina’s Haven pilot project and is testimony of the journey so far.
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Read the report and executive summary here.
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Field of Hope
Field of Hope November – December 2022
A research project delivered at The Barn at Easington working with women under the care of Addictions UK and Sue Robson founder of Tina’s Haven The workshops were delivered at the Barn at Easington in November 2022 led by arts practitioners and highly experienced trauma-informed therapists, trained in addiction recovery, and women’s self-empowerment.
The aim of the development phase was to introduce the Barn to a group of women from Addictions UK through a series of taster sessions in Forest Bathing/land art, photography, and sound sessions all based in the outdoor environment. The aim of the project was to give agency to the women and enable them to be involved in creative ways to tell their individual stories by being more deeply connected to the natural world.
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A beautiful film created by filmmaker Ellin Hare, co-director at The Barn at Easington, documents the women's journey that resulted in an exhibition of photographs made by the women from ANE at The Arts Cafe East Durham Trust. Watch the video below.
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Project partners
Wild Winter Walks
Wild Winter Walks September 2021- December 2021
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East Durham Trust and Durham County Council Covid 19 Recovery grant funded 30 well-being walks from The Barn at Easington. We took participants through a carefully structured mindful walk to connect with nature and calm our nervous systems. We walked with over 100 adults and worked alongside Mind and East Durham Trust. It was a lovely heart-warming project that brought people from all over County Durham to experience.
Comments from the sessions.
“A really lovely session, I felt really peaceful in the forest"
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"Absolutely fantastic. Loved every minute of it, relaxing and clearing my head ,lying in a hammock."
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"Absolutely loved it. At one with the forest life: trees, birds, flowers. earth. So pretty, perfectly peaceful. As always this was a fantastic session."
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"Calming with Forest Bathing and really interesting learning about filming."
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