Thrive developing innovative new wellbeing app

At the end of 2023, we were thrilled to be awarded grant funding towards an exciting new digital service.

Our new ‘Cultivating wellbeing’ app will allow individuals to develop their own, personal, gardening and nature-based plan. It is being developed together with tech for good digital specialists Big Lemon.

At the heart of the app will be an interactive personal calendar, along with tailored suggestions for different activities to try. As well as easily planning activities, users will be able to regularly make note of their progress, thoughts and mood.

By creating and taking ownership of their own plan, we hope the app will help users embed healthier behaviours and in turn improve their health and wellbeing.

Offering extra motivation

Cultivating wellbeing will be an important tool to help cover a gap in our services. It will allow us to reach people who could manage their health conditions in their own space, but would benefit from additional motivation, structure and support.

This service will be suitable for:

• Anyone who has taken part in an in-person therapeutic gardening programme, whether for a few days or several weeks or months
• Anyone who would like to improve their health and wellbeing, particularly mental wellbeing

We are also talking to health professionals about how this app could help the individuals they are supporting.

Validating the new service

We are working with The Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA) to ensure it reaches the standard for inclusion in digital health libraries.

We are also collaborating with the University of Essex, who will independently assess the outcomes for app users through surveys and interviews.

A pilot version is due to go live in early summer, allowing us to extensively test how the app is working. We hope to follow this with a full launch in early spring 2025.

We will also continue exploring extra sources of funding that will allow the app to be accessed by as many people as possible who could benefit from it.