6867 A garden for the future

Objectives The 'Garden for the Future' project aimed to redesign an outdated, inaccessible and underused outdoor play area at the Great North Children's Hospital in Newcastle. The project was sparked by a young patient who wrote a letter to the directorate asking for 'a garden area where staff and patients can play and grow vegetables'. Green spaces contribute to physical and mental health, as well as helping to cool urban environments and reduce the health impacts of air pollution. They are also important spaces for children's play, learning and development. We believe that every children's hospital should have one. Figure 1 (below) shows the existing outdoor play space. Methods We designed the project to maximise engagement and collaboration from a diverse group of patients, local young people, hospital staff and local charities. We ran three workshops: a face-to-face workshop with play service staff, a face-to-face workshop with our Young Person's Advisory Group, and an online workshop with our hospital Youth Forum. We also ran a competition asking children from 0–18 to design a new play area based on the principles of 'play' and 'grow' as requested in the original patient letter. Four hospital volunteers facilitated children's participation in the competition and helped those needing additional support to enter. It was important to include multiple modes of participation in this project (in-person, on paper, online) to allow for different communication styles. Results Contributions from 100 children and young people and over 25 staff were collected. 16 young people submitted their ideas through our in-person and online workshops. There were 84 competition entrants aged between 2 and 18 years old. A panel of 8 Trust staff and local charity representatives judged the competition shortlist based on three categories informed by the patient letter: accessible play opportunities, ideas for 'greening' the space and encouraging wildlife, and overall design. Four competition winners were invited to attend a prize-giving ceremony and picnic with their families. They received prizes donated by local charities and gardens, and participated in a bird-box painting activity. Figure 2 (below) shows one of the winning designs. Conclusion All ideas submitted through these activities were represented in our recommendations to the architect, whose initial designs for the garden are reflective of this process. Participatory engagement around the design of hospital green spaces is important on a number of levels. 1) It ensures that spaces are designed 'with' rather than 'for' users; 2) It provides a medium for listening to and valuing the views of patients and staff; 3) It creates enthusiasm for upcoming projects during their planning stages and allows potential issues to be raised and discussed. One unexpected outcome was that the new plans incorporate a current item which many children already love and have requested that we keep – the 'spinny roundabout'. Without children's participation we would not have known the importance of this feature. We plan to continue the participatory process through ongoing design consultation, and future input from children and young people to maintain the garden itself.