Cover Story…
Dounans outdoor centre helps kids improve their mental health
WHILE the Covid-19 pandemic has been tough on us all, children and young people have been hit particularly hard. Dounans Centre, an outdoor education centre in Aberfoyle, is helping to combat the lingering effects of the pandemic on young people’s mental health.
Founded after the UK Government’s Camps Act in 1939, Dounans is enjoyed by thousands of children every year.
Jamie Miller is centre manager of Dounans and chief operations manager of Scottish Outdoor Education Centres (SOEC), running this residential camp as well as Broomlee Centre in West Linton and Belmont Centre in Meigle.
“Our primary aim is to promote education and wellbeing for young people throughout Scotland,” says Jamie. “Our bread and butter tends to be Monday to Friday courses for late primary, early secondary. We do activities and learning from the activities, as well as food and accommodation.”
These experiences are helping young people return to a more “normal” setting.
“The pandemic has had a big effect on the social aspect of young people, they’ve been very insular – having shared group experiences is very important for their mental health,” Jamie says. “Overcoming adversity is part and parcel of what we do – so we present young people with challenges, they have to adapt to those challenges, overcome them and be prepared for the next set.”
“The pandemic has set quite a prism of challenges but, moreover, we want to bring people back together as sort of a group bonding experience, shared experience, and then overcome things together, to try to get back to some level of normality.”
That “normality” is focused on getting our young people back to the outdoors for a truly hands-on experience, leaving Zoom gatherings and virtual learning firmly in the past.
“Trying to disconnect to reconnect is how I like to think of it,” Jamie says. “So disconnecting from the computers and wires, and reconnecting to the natural environment and their friends.
“We’ve kind of used that as a throwaway comment, but we use it now as a theme for working with the young people – to show them that there’s a reality and not a virtual reality.”
Those who have been lucky enough to return to Dounans since lockdown restrictions eased have had a great time in a safe environment, yet Jamie still believes that in terms of mental health, the scars of the pandemic are yet to heal for young people.
“I was having a conversation with teachers who visited just a couple of weeks ago, and they were saying they could see a marked difference in the young people.
“When they returned to school they weren’t as ready to interact with their friends and everything
had a strange feeling about it. Because they’ve not had real-world interactions for the past year and a half, the world’s a scarier place than it was before,” Jamie says.
The work that the team at Dounans are doing is already yielding positive results, however.
“We can see a development or growth in a very short period. So sometimes they might be a little bit timid, a bit insular, but by day five we find they’re a bit more gregarious.
“We try to give them cognitive skills and physical skills and, as the programme goes through its natural process, then the youngsters follow that and start taking responsibility for how the programme runs.”
Dounans offers a vast array of activities from orienteering to archery, problem-solving and tree-climbing – all helping to enhance children’s education.
“Everything we do should have a learning component and a learning outcome.
“We have a lot of high ropes activities, so we’ll talk about how the rope system works for the climber, which means they don’t plummet earthwards if they slip off.
“Orienteering lends itself really well to geography, but there’s also a lot of maths and numeracy involved,” Jamie says.
“We try to make the learning explicit so the young people can see that the stuff they’ve learned at school actually has a practical application.
“If you’re anything like me you’ve probably thought, ‘I haven’t done a lot of algebra since I left school.’ Actually, you have, but sometimes those links need to be made more obvious. “That causes reflection when they go back to school – they can think, ‘We did this thing at Dounans, and I can see how those go together.’”
While SOEC has made it through the pandemic to continue welcoming guests, their survival looked unlikely a little under a year ago.
“In October, we had the receivers at the door – it looked like the whole charity was about to fold. We got a small saving grace from the Scottish Government and that saw us through the winter, and we just managed to eke it out that wee bit more.
“Scars of the pandemic are yet to heal”
“We started trading again in March once the Covid restrictions were lifted,” says Jamie.
Despite the struggles of the past 18 months, the future looks bright for this 80-year-old institution.
“I’m really keen on upping the adventure component and making the centres as stable and accessible as possible. So, for me, the more young people that get to experience outdoor education, the better,” says Jamie.
“Traditionally we work from March to November, but I would like to extend some of this through winter.
“Winter’s a great time for outdoor learning and it’s under-utilised, so my hope would be to extend the season right through. I’m keen to augment the learning experience for young people as far and wide as I can.”
“Orienteering lends itself to geography, but there’s also lots of maths involved”