Wellness Workshops at the Natural History Museum

Mental health

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

When it comes to youth wellness, the drive for student academic performance can overshadow mental health and disrupt meaningful social connection in detrimental ways. At the same time, parents and caregivers who are entrusted with supporting youth report being exhausted and overwhelmed by job demands and more, such that time spent with their children is focused solely on the practical matters of everyday life. This can lead to frustration and strained relationships on all sides. At the Natural History Museum (NHM), we recognize there is an as-yet unaddressed need to better support parents/caregivers so that they, in turn, can better support the young people in their charge. NHM is in a unique position to address this need because: 1) we have the trusted relationships with schools that puts us in direct connection with parents who need this service, and 2) we have the assets, in our beautiful Nature Garden and in our extraordinarily committed and experienced staff, to do this work.

NHM aims to implement a Wellness Workshop program first offered pre-pandemic that uses the healing power of nature and community to grow social-emotional connection and positive communication. Our goal is to serve three schools with workshops in 2024/2025 followed by a culminating Wellness Day event. Our plan is for each of the three workshops to have two sessions serving 20 parents/caregivers each and the Wellness Day will serve 140. Spanish language facilitation will be offered throughout the program.
In Session #1, at the school site, we work within the existing parent program structure to invite parents in, build trust, and introduce communication concepts and strategies designed to create the kind of open-ended dialogue adults can use to enter into judgment-free conversation with their children, providing support without instruction or discipline. For Session #2, we invite participants to the museum to reconnect with nature through our three-acre garden of native plants, introducing wellness and mindfulness techniques, while facilitating opportunities for participants to practice sharing with each other in open-ended-style dialogue. NHM will offer transportation to the museum for participants.
At the culminating Wellness Day event, participants will engage in conversations and activities such as yoga, guided meditation, sound baths, art making, and nature journaling that connect with nature, culture, and each other in ways that are empowering and healing.

The health and wellness of our youth is in jeopardy and overall levels of stress are on the rise. Our program will enable 200 parents and caregivers each year to gain life-changing new tools to take better care of themselves and build stronger relationships with their children. The pilot parent workshops showed promising results that underscore the value not only of building strong emotional connections between parents and their children, but also of the healing power of equitable access to nature. These results are backed by research findings that show, beyond mere associations, there is actual causality between access to nature and health. NHMLAC will gain important knowledge about how we can expand upon and improve this work, so that eventually our whole learning community is aware of this resource and can take advantage of it in future years. The result will be greater understanding that mental health is not an after-thought but an essential priority for all Angelenos.

Pilot programs revealed that participants were both grateful to have new strategies for connecting with their children and eager for more time to connect with NHM and each other. One parent remarked: “Now I am going to get my kids out of their rooms and into my neighborhood park.”
Inspired by them, our vision for success is:
parents/caregivers will engage in more constructive conversations with their children parents/caregivers will feel more comfortable using museum content and resources as a springboard for these conversations
parents/caregivers will be inspired to pursue their own interests and curiosity around the museum’s content
parents/caregivers will be refreshed, recharged, and confident in supporting their child’s educational journey
The program’s full implementation will allow us to formalize pre- and post-conversations with participants to understand and measure what the short- and long-term benefits of the program are and to what extent we are reaching the above goals.