Climate, Environment and Mental Health Action Forum meetings

Meeting 6: 12th March 2025

Download notes and other resources from the meeting (relevant pages numbers from the notes listed below in brackets).

In this online session, we reflected on the work of the Forum to date and thought about future sessions (pp. 2-3). Joe Barker (Thrive LDN) introduced the International Transformational Resilience Coalition’s framework community-driven approaches to climate and mental health action, emphasising self-regulation, meaning-making, and developing social infrastructure (pp. 3-5). We had an engaging discussion about this, including on implementing these ideas, funding challenges, cross-sector collaboration, and evidence gaps, with suggestions for integrating resilience models into public health (pp. 3-5).

Member updates featured youth engagement projects, creative health initiatives, and funding opportunities, including artist commissions and events from London Arts and Health, and a call-out for co-applicants for the Wellcome Climate Impact Awards (p.5-7). The session closed with reflections on what people want from this Forum in future, with working towards collaborative action coming out as a key theme (pp. 7-8).

Meeting 5: 30th January 2025

Download notes and other resources from the meeting (relevant page numbers from the notes listed below in brackets).

Our first in-person meeting of the Forum was filled with energy and enthusiasm. We met at a lovely (and eco-friendly) venue in The Phoenix Garden. Attendees loved the chance to connect face-to-face, making discussions even more engaging and collaborative.

After an introduction, we did a mindfulness exercise together (p.2) before a lively ‘World Café’ session, which got people talking to each other (p.2). Storytelling discussions explored the emotional and systemic impacts of the climate crisis (pp. 2-3), followed by reflections on creating lasting change together (pp.4-6). We ended with inspiring mini-presentations from members on youth empowerment, climate literacy, nature-based wellbeing, community engagement, and more (p.6-8), plus slides in the resources). Overall, it was an inspiring session, and we got positive feedback from attendees!

Meeting 4: 11th December 2024

Download notes and other resources from the meeting (relevant pages numbers from the notes listed below in brackets).

Our guest speaker Abiola Okubanjo from Adventures in Compassionate Commerce thoughtfully discussed engaging Black-led organisations in climate action, highlighting challenges and strategies like relationship-building and generating community-led evidence (pp. 7-9 of the Notes).
Thrive LDN shared our new webpage on mental health in the climate crisis, and we appreciated getting using feedback from attendees on its design and content (pp. 9-14).

We also had valuable discussions about improving the accessibility and inclusiveness of the Forum, covering issues such as meeting times, meeting focuses, and remuneration. We shared a survey to allow people to give further feedback. We also loved hearing updates from members, including UKHSA and Stanley Arts (pp. 2-7, and 14).

Meeting 3: 2nd October 2024

Download Notes from the meeting. It was great to see lots of engagement from attendees on digital tools for climate and mental health – the meeting’s main topic. We shared Thrive LDN’s plans in this area and found people’s insights extremely helpful. We want to co-develop a new digital tool with partners, so get in touch if you are interested. To find out more, see pages 2-6 of the Notes document and the ‘Digital tools’ presentation slides.

We heard a fascinating presentation from Charles Ogunbode, Affiliate Member at Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST). Charles covered emerging research into climate perceptions, emotions, and the implications for wellbeing among UK people of colour; and there was time for a quick Q&A. See pages 6-7 of the Notes and Charles’ presentation slides. Contact Charles to follow up on anything.

Finally, as always, we loved hearing from you about events and resources in the ‘Member’s Updates’ meeting slot (see page 8 of the Notes).

Meeting 2: 24th July 2024

Download Notes from the meeting. It was great to see lots of enthusiasm at the meeting, and loads of ideas for collaborating around Climate, Environment, and Mental Health across London. We really enjoyed hearing Tracy Holtham – a gardener, interdisciplinary artist, and mental health advocate – talk about her work on nature, mental health, art, and the connections between all these – see pages 10-12 of the Notes document for more info.

The ‘Resources for Collaboration’ document shares the rich variety of ideas that came out of the meeting. The document covers: partner updates; a concise summary of projects for collaboration; and suggested collaborative clusters. Use people’s contact details (given in the document) to get in touch and find out more about initiatives. We loved hearing from the group about many events and brilliant resources – see at the ‘Updates from you’ section on pages 12-15 of the Notes document.

Meeting 1: 12th June 2024

Download Notes and Resources from the meeting. 66 people attended our first Forum meeting, and there was so much positive energy.

We introduced the Forum, started to get to know each other, took part in interactive activities to find out what people want from the Forum (‘collaboration’ was a top response, see pages 1-3), and heard from Zarina Ahmad at the Women’s Environmental Network (WEN) about some of WEN’s amazing work (pages 3-5). We were also delighted to hear about many events taking place and brilliant resources in existence (pages 6-8).