Kate Middleton makes surprise nature-focused visit to mental health charity
Kate, the Princess of Wales, recently stepped out for a surprise visit to a nature-focused mental health charity in London.
Kensington Palace on Friday released photos of Kate's late October visit to Dose of Nature, a charity "dedicated to improving mental health and wellbeing through increased engagement with the natural world," according to its website.
The photos show Kate greeting and and talking with people outside, amid the trees at Pensford Field park in the London district of Kew.
According to Dose of Nature, Kate met with the charity's founder, Dr. Alison Greenwood, and her team to explore how the charity approaches mental health care through the lens of clinical psychology and nature.
The princess also spoke with Dose of Nature participants about their own experiences with nature and how it has helped them in their lives, including a man named Tom, who went from being a participant to a Nature Guide volunteer with the charity.
"Our journey has been very very different, but it's so wonderful to hear about your nature connection and how it's been so healing for you, and I felt the same," Kate told Tom, according to a Dose of Nature news release about Kate's visit.
She continued, "The fact that you're able to provide that to so many other people in this community; that sense of purpose and meaning, and belonging, through that experience, I think is something that has got the longevity and the sustainability of feeling like, almost without knowing what's to come, without having the control in your life of knowing what the future might hold, the fact that you feel that you can cope with things, because you feel that interconnection, I think that makes it holistic in a very true essence."
Kate has long championed the power of nature to boost physical and mental health, as well as its benefits for young children.
Last month, the Princess of Wales also announced that the Royal Foundation Center for Early Childhood, an initiative she founded, is embarking on new research efforts to learn how nature can support kids' well-being in their earliest years.
