Spotlight: Louise Weissel OT
Louise Weissel is an occupational therapist working as a consultant at Sustain-Ability Access Consultancy. She is the coordinator of the Greener Health Project in Wiltshire, England.
Since 2021, Louise has worked on the Greener Health Project, a pilot initiative of The Wiltshire Mental Health Inclusion Service at Rethink Mental Illness. The project connects individual health and ecological sustainability with the goal of determining whether greener lifestyles can lead to improved health and well-being. Participants are offered one-on-one weekly sessions for up to 12 weeks and the opportunity to participate in monthly group sessions. Louise reflects that most participants are interested in the social inclusion aspects such as getting out into nature, but are less likely to address health concerns through green lifestyle changes. This may be because of natural resistance to behavior change, as well as limited knowledge of the connection between individual and planetary health. Despite these challenges, she recalls one socially isolated client who reduced his smoking and began biking or walking to his community center instead of taking taxis. From this client experience and others, Louise reflects on the importance of establishing small, manageable goals in order to ensure success.
Recognizing that those who are most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis include individuals with disabilities, Louise hopes to continue merging her consultancy work with her passion for sustainability. For example, she completed an audit for a mobile library that was struggling with heat. She recommended better insulation, use of solar panels, and outdoor expansion of the library with awnings to provide shade.
In her personal life, Louise takes part in a number of environmental efforts. She is a member of “Health for Extinction Rebellion” as part of her climate activism work. When asked about the various approaches of climate groups, Louise agrees that some methods, such as blocking traffic, can be quite contentious. She reports feeling torn about whether these methods will ruin the cause or, as intended, bring the climate emergency to the forefront of the media. Louise is also a member of a small climate group called Climate Friendly Bradford on Avon in which she partakes in walking tours with special attention to observing and listening to birds. She recently acquired a donation of binoculars from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which she plans to gift to interested participants in the Greener Health Project. She uses the region-specific Merlin Bird ID app to encourage anyone to better engage with their environment, which she hopes may lead to greater appreciation and stewardship of the natural world.
Louise will soon be taking an advanced certification course in Wilderness Therapy to learn more about the relevance of this nature-based approach in her occupational therapy practice.
You can learn more and connect with Louise on her LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/louise-weissel-38514013/ and check out her resource on Environmental Sustainability in Activities of Daily Living.
Spotlight written by Laurie Thompson, OTD/s