Grant enables nature therapy garden for children with autism at West Valley Outdoor Learning Center

The West Valley Outdoor Learning Center has received a $12,000 Hagan Foundation grant to fund a nature therapy garden on its grounds to benefit children with autism.

The foundation is named after Dr. Cornelius Hagan, a Spokane ear, nose and throat specialist who practiced medicine in Spokane for more than three decades. He established the Hagan Foundation to support educational initiatives in 1997.

The goal of the outdoor learning center, located on Upriver Drive next to Pasadena Park Elementary, is to connect students to nature. It is home to several owls and other birds of prey as well as tortoises, lizards and other animals.

The planned therapy garden is called Project NEST, Nature Experiences for Teachers and Children. Center director Jami Ostby Marsh said she wants to be able to educate people on using nature as a therapy tool. “There isn’t anything like this,” she said.

A trail that will be included as part of the garden has already been started. It includes a section with deliberately uneven ground that includes steppingstones, logs and other surfaces to walk on. “Uneven ground makes your brain pay attention,” she said.

She said even students who are not autistic seem to enjoy having fun on that section. They jump, skip and tiptoe through it. “It totally changes how kids interact with it,” she said.

Ostby Marsh said the trail will also include small teepees that autistic students can use as a dark, quiet place to self-sooth if they get overstimulated. The trail will loop around the center’s pond and wind through the trees. “It’s not going to be a huge trail,” she said.

Many students with autism like repetitive behaviors such as stacking items. The garden will include a stacking area as well as a spot where students can dig in the dirt. The old fence, which is made of chemically treated wood, is also being removed and replaced with a cedar fence.

Ostby Marsh has been consulting with autism experts while she designs the garden, including a local landscape architect who specializes in autism.

“The idea is that our trail could be used as a flagship trail,” she said. “All the research we’re using out here is proven in an adaptive classroom.”

There were once plans to include screens showing various facts and information throughout the garden but that isn’t in the current budget, she said. “We had applied for a much larger grant,” she said. “I’ll take any money I can get, and we’ll move forward with it.”

Ostby Marsh said nature is beneficial for everyone, not just children with autism. She says the learning center is often visited by children who have behavior issues in class, but being at the center breaks that cycle.

“Letting them explore and be outside lets them show different behavior,” she said. “We don’t see a lot of behavior issues.”

The learning center has partnered with the nearby Hutton Settlement for years and is partnering with them on the nature garden project. The facility has a 2-mile walking trail that it allows West Valley students to use. Hutton and the learning center partnered to seek funding from the Hagan Foundation, and Hutton received a separate grant to build a classroom yurt on the trail that will expand what the school district can do there, Ostby Marsh said.

“On colder days we can go up there and warm up,” she said.

Ostby Marsh said she wants to start work on the nature therapy garden as soon as the ground warms up. “I’d like to have it done before the school year gets out,” she said.