Creative Arts Therapy Devon CIC

Organisation Bio

We are a friendly, diverse and experienced group of therapists in Devon.

We offer a variety of creative arts therapies and use a holistic approach to address a wide range of mental health and emotional difficulties, to achieve positive and sustainable changes for our clients.

We are passionate about building transformational connections to empower individuals, families and their communities, to heal and take care of ourselves, each other and our environment.

We chose to be a Community Interest Company because we know that mental health and wellbeing services are most successful and accessible to all when they are designed and delivered from the heart of the community they serve.

Product/Services

advice & guidance

What we provide

Arts and environmentally focussed therapy.

Accreditations

mcs

About our climate journey

We created CATDEVON in 2020 during Covid lockdown, in reponse to our model of being mobile therapists delivering to schools ending and our central office closing. As therapy delivery was moved online (Teletherapy) a necessary and adequate adaption, online therapy, especially for children was no replacement for face-to-face arts based therapy work. However we were keen to pivot away from acquiring another central office to operate administratively from when we could work from home after lockdown restrictions was lifted. We all live in different locations across Devon, and recognised our commuting to/from school/home/office was excessive environmentally. By chosing a home office we were committing to serving the needs of our home communities more too, and we'd be actively decreasing carbon emissions both by not adding commuting to/from school/home/office and running a 'central' office building. This became a central tenet behind each of our pricing, and geographical reach. We committed to using public transport (train) wherever viable, cycling and walking. One aspect of being a therapist is not delivering therapy to clients in your home neighbourhood so we recognise our need to keep home/work boundaries clear.

AREAS OF Specialism/Interest

Engagement Nature Travel Resources

Sector

education & research health arts

Type of member

Social Enterprise

Size

2 – 49 People

Website

catdevon.org.uk/

Address

Living Room, Fore St Buckfastleigh Devon TQ110BS

Contact

Our climate journey

COMMITTED TO NET ZERO?

CARBON FOOTPRINT CALCULATED?

CLIMATE ACTION PLAN WRITTEN?

MONITORING IMPACT YEARLY?

PLAN TO BE NET ZERO BY...?

Biggest climate achievement to date

We have cut our car journeys and emissions a great deal. Train use too support our choices. We use Plymouth Scrapstore resources for arts materials Borrow Don't Buy and share materials to save duplication.

Nearly all our strategic decision are filtered through an environmental lens because we value, and work with nature in therapy so policy and practice needs to align as much as possible. For example, we encourage carpooling arrangements on WhatsApp between a group of participants attending a monthly environmental arts wellbeing workshop at Poole Farm. Participants asked to share cars/driving and we inform those unable to benefit from carpooling of the public bus times and routes to encourage alternative habits. A participant travelled on an electric bike. It would help if Beryl Bikes were cheaper to use or a subsidy was offered if the bikes were used to travel to net-zero events like our nature workshops.

Pupils in receipt of therapy often request their outputs are recycled and composted, and where confidentiality isn't compromised this is possible.

Most difficult climate challenge faced

A non integrated public transport system!
We would all support EV use but can't personally afford to purchase. An electric bike for each of us would be the answer. Combining train and e-bike for Plymouth and Exeter based work is viable. We'd like to access grants or interest-free finance to trial this for one therapist.

Best climate advice or tip for others

Taking the Climate Literacy training if offered by Plymouth City Council. 3 days of hard-to-swallow reality checking and solution and action focus approach at the end of which a pledge to make a change is encouraged. I pledged to declutter my email inbox. As environmental arts therapists in our team we value retetion of veteran and mature trees over replanting new tree projects because carbon sequestration by trees takes decades. Tree planting is considered the answer in public's perception and policy implementation by LA's. So little is understood about tree selection, size, planting conditions, after care and the time it takes before benefits of trees are felt (carbon sequestration). Plant new trees but keep old trees, they are one of the most valuable assets. Many (understatement) newly planted trees die because of no tree teams to administer aftercare, but the 'number planted' is never adjusted to include these enormous losses giving a v skewered picture of action toward decarbonisation. Newly planted tree losses is a huge financial waste too.