Building hope through belongingness and wellbeing: Creating an upward spiralling model used in a pollinator and community garden project

We further extend our research on a pollinator and community garden presented at previous ABEN events. The pollinator and community garden project serves as a real-life case study to discuss the transtheoretical model (TTM) of behavioural change. The different stages of the TTM resulted in the creation of our positive upward spiralling model, which we will explore at the ABEN Conference 2022 in the context of belongingness, wellbeing, and hope.

Pollinators such as birds, butterflies and bees maintain our ecosystem and food production (Baldock et al., 2016; Baldock, 2020). They are involved in pollinating about 75% of our crop plants (Shivanna, 2022). Unfortunately, due to habitat loss, monocultures, and the application of pesticides and herbicides (Aizen et al., 2009; Millard et al., 2021; Shivanna, 2022), pollinator numbers are declining worldwide, including in Australia (Cheptou, 2021). Despite the negative impacts of this trend on biodiversity and food production, there is hope as any regeneration of landscape that is supporting pollinator habitats helps rapidly increase the number of pollinators (O’Brien & Arathi, 2021). Hence, even a small pollinator and community garden can serve to create such habitats, conserve biodiversity and, support a social movement that focuses on human-nature interactions (Foodwise, 2022). Consequently, community gardens can create a space of belongingness and wellbeing (Guitart et al., 2012; Frumkin et al., 2017). In turn, the feeling of belongingness creates hope for people; this emotional connection can be used to achieve behavioural change, for example, in terms of wellbeing and sustainability (Pleeging, 2022).

With our wellbeing-oriented sustainability project, building a pollinator and community garden on a Charles Sturt University campus, we illustrate an approach to behavioural change in an organisational setting. We used the TTM of behavioural change framework to guide us in our attempt to induce change toward a healthy workplace. The stages of this change model include pre-contemplation (low intention to change), contemplation (with consideration to change), preparation (intention to change), action (engagement in change), and maintenance (cultivation of change). The maintenance stage becomes a continuation of the change and an integral part of everyday life (Velicer et al., 1998; Fenn et al., 2022), such as caring for our garden. Within this model of change, the garden is a liminal space (Tagliaventi, 2020) for staff; being both a physical and emotional transitional focal point through which change can be seen to occur. In this way, the experience of our pollinator and community garden, during construction and continuing now is conceptualised within the TTM as a positive upward spiralling model of increasing social capital (Emery & Flora 2006) contributing to wellbeing and belongingness (Small et al., in press).

With our research and conference contribution, we demonstrate that a small-scale local initiative can positively impact community and nature – letting a spark fly to more initiatives that help create a world worth living in and allow for hope to flourish.