A growing body of evidence shows that spending time in nature is essential for a child’s healthy development. Being in the great outdoors on a regular basis can help improve kids’ physical and mental health, academic outcomes, and social-emotional wellbeing. Not to mention the community, public health, and environmental benefits that result from a generation of young people falling in love with nature.
But unfortunately, natural spaces aren’t accessible to everyone. “Particularly for Black and Brown communities, the outdoors hasn’t always been welcoming to everybody,” explained Ashley Brailsford, PhD, Program Coordinator of the Tri County Play Collaborative. “We see evidence of things like police brutality, racism, and discrimination, and that’s been a barrier.” Transportation is also often a barrier when it comes to accessing some of the Lowcountry’s most treasured natural spaces. “Oftentimes people want to come to Charleston but live in very rural areas of Berkeley and Dorchester counties.”
Spending time in nature is essential for a child’s healthy development, and a local nonprofit is working to improve access to nature for those in Black or minority communities.
In order to increase equitable access to nature in the Lowcountry, Brailsford and her team at the Tri County Play Collaborative will be working with the Children & Nature Network, the National League of Cities, and KABOOM! through the Nature Everywhere initiative, embarking upon two years of strategic planning, technical support, and start-up funding to develop and implement community-driven plans for connecting children and families to nature-based experiences and learning. Selected through a competitive application process, the Tri-County Play Collaborative is committed to carrying out a thoughtful, community-based initiative to help enrich kids’ lives outdoors, in partnership with the Charleston County Public Library, South Carolina Housing Justice Network, and a Boston-based company called Math Talk.
“The Tri County Play Collaborative’s application hit every mark when it comes to our Nature Everywhere goals,” says Sarah Milligan-Toffler, President and CEO of the Children & Nature Network. “At the heart of the team’s work is the idea of community engagement and support for equitable access to nature. With the team’s focus on early childhood and strong existing citywide collaborative, this team can truly benefit from learnings from other cities across the country to bring scale and innovation to the tri-county area. We look forward to supporting their efforts to connect academic learning and nature play.”
Getting kids out and at the beach is part of Tri-County Play Collaborative's national initiative to improve equitable access to nature.
Brailsford and her team have a strong vision for the ways in which this initiative might have an impact on local families. “We try to uplift the fact that nature is all around us, and there are opportunities to engage in it where you live,” she said. “One of the goals was for us to think about in what ways we are exposing or providing experiences around literacy and math to children, because we know that books aren’t always the entry point for kids to be engaged in literacy. So we started thinking about ways to create story walks and math trails in communities where people already live.”
For Brailsford, spending time in nature makes sense not only based on her expertise in child development, but from personal experience. “I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time outside because I’m an 80’s and 90’s baby, so we didn’t have the quick access to electronics like kids do now,” she shared. “Everybody was outside in the neighborhood, and families weren’t as transient then as they are now.”
Years later, that time spent outside has inspired her to lead the Charleston community in providing equitable access to nature, everywhere.
