Q & A
Question and answer session between:
Laura Davies BN Mental health Nursing student and David Phillips, founder, and chairman of the Anna Phillips Foundation.
Interview held:
3rd May, 2022.
Edited by:
Diana Williams BN Child Nursing Student
‘Compassion through lived experience is the key to improving the future of healthcare and education of health professionals’-Ìý Student Showcase Group
1. Tell us about your organisation?
The Anna Phillips Foundation was set up in memory of Anna Phillips, David’s daughter. It is a registered charity. The values of the charity is to help people who have trauma-related mental health challenges. The three ways in which they do that are by hosting activities in nature; collaborating with researchers to better understand the impact/benefits of the environment/natural world for people with trauma experiences and by campaigning to improve the understanding of the reasons for self-harm/suicide and reduce the stigma around this.
2. What is the ethos of organisation?
The Foundation has three values at the heart it: compassion, simplicity, and justice. Compassion being linked to love and the way people act towards each other. Simplicity because the complexity in the world today can be challenging. Returning to authenticity, simplicity such as being in nature is such a powerful tool for well-being. Justice to ensure that people receive the care and support they deserve especially after traumatic experiences. The Foundation mission is to create a world where people can feel safe and are treated with respect – ‘to be safe is to be free’. Using nature to do this can help someone to move away from the trauma they have experienced and focus on wellbeing by being in a healing environment.
3. What current/ future projects are you working on?
The overarching theme of foundation is to reduce the impact of trauma by allowing people to return to nature at Ty Anna in which people can access a safe space to be able to express and reconnect with nature. The Charity is working on processing these issues in government and within policy by campaigning for change around the language of professionals in diagnoses and healing the trauma created by others.
4. What message would you give to the person reading this spotlight?
David hopes that anyone who reads this spotlight is curious to discover more about what the Anna Phillips Foundation values, aims and objectives... He would like all people to know about the Foundation whether they are clinicians, members of the public or people who would benefit directly from the work the Foundation does. He is particularly keen for those people who would benefit from ecotherapy to learn more about the Foundation so they can rediscover their own path and become the author of their own story.
5. What is the main point you would like students to know about?
Students would be welcome to come to the space to help/volunteer. David hopes that one day there may be an opportunity for students to experience the Anna Phillips Foundation from a placement perspective to experience it in all its beauty.
6. what does it mean to be in the showcase spotlight?
With a deep sense of humility, I am so grateful for this unique opportunity to share with all readers of Spotlight. On my journey to cope with and manage a personal tragedy through trying to help others who must face profound traumatic experiences in their lives. To work towards a better understanding of the social causes of trauma-related mental health challenges is a huge challenge but one we as a society must face if we wish to secure a future world where we enhance wellbeing, feel safe and so ultimately achieve freedom.
‘A wonderful opportunity and privilege to share my experiences with students who are the future in progressing the practice of mental health and well-being’ – Anna Phillips Foundation