Restorative practice approaches to mental health care are generally only available after crises occur and in institutional settings that often harm community members in their operations and assumptions. However, these interventions hold great promise as preventative measures, and green spaces are naturally aligned with restorative practice work. By deploying restorative practice trainings, mental health education, and related programming for community members in local green spaces, Deep Space Mind (DSM) 215 intends to test whether facilitating access to community mental health care in third spaces (e.g. gardens, green spaces) makes neighborhoods more prepared to handle mental health issues within their neighborhoods as they arise, and less likely to require systems involvement to resolve them.
