About Green Mental Health – initiative (“Groene GGZ”)

Nature is good for our health, both physically and mentally. It is therefore very important to implement contact with nature in the health sector,  where people really need it. Not in the least in Mental Healthcare (abbreviated as GGZ in The Netherlands).

With the ‘Green GGZ’- initiative, we – Nature For Health and IVN Nature Education as initiators – together with a core group of – currently – 15 GGZ institutions from all over the Netherlands are building a green movement in mental health, with partners as De Nederlandse GGZ (The Dutch GGZ Association), Buitenpsychologen (Outdoor Psychologists), health insurance company CZ and university VU-Amsterdam.

We aim to achieve that nature is once again used as a source of mental, positive health. For clients, family members and healthcare professionals. We are also committed to nature by investing in an increase in biodiversity on the site or in the vicinity of mental health care institutions. We invite the neighborhood of those sites to participate. People can meet each other through nature and it does not matter whether you are a client, local resident or employee when you work or socialize together outdoors.

The ultimate goal of “Groene GGZ” is:

So called “Green Mental Health frontrunners” have been selected from a larger group of GGZ applications. The frontrunning institutions have signed a “Green Mental Healthcare agreement”.  The current frontrunners are listed below. Together, these institutions have more than 30,000 employees, treat more than 300,000 clients and together have premises constituting the size of more than one to one and a half average national park site in The Netherlands.