Written by Taryn Brooks
Cheerful giggles and child-sized stomps harmonize with singing birds to fill the air of an otherwise quiet afternoon. In a world where trees are towers to be climbed, sticks are swords, and friendship can be made with no words at all, nature brings a new type of imagination to a young mind. Darana Campbell, executive director of Forest Families of Chattanooga, founded the organization as a branch between families and their connection to the outdoors.
Four years ago, in the midst of Covid confinement and a heartbreaking divorce, Campbell found herself overwhelmed with stress. To clear her mind and give her son a new way to channel his energy, the two began to adventure out together on frequent walks.
“I had so much stress that I just felt so much better when we went for a walk,” Campbell said.
To share her new hobby, Darana started a Facebook group hoping to get other parents involved in the healing powers of nature. She soon created a community of parents wanting to improve the quality of their and their children’s lives, which fueled her motivation to keep her family outside.
“It was a really good way of us to have a set schedule of ‘nope, there might be people there waiting on us, we’re gonna go do this,’” Campbell said.
Campbell found herself in a constant loop of experience and learning from here. The more benefits she saw in her son and herself from being in nature, the more she wanted to learn about it. She began researching and reading through countless books on the subject, and the more she read the more the effects became noticeable.
“The more I read, the more I was just consumed by it,” Campbell said. “It was sort of this snowball effect.”
Improvements to sleep cycles, muscular strength, coordination and immune system as well as a reduction in allergies and eczema are all benefits Cambpell has uncovered in her research and seen first-hand in her nine-year-old son Cashel.
While the health benefits of nature were crucial to Campbell, she wanted to take things a step further. When she began including other children and families, the range of advantages widened to nurture foundational relationship skills as well.
“I think there’s a lot of kids that have a lot of social anxiety when you stick them in a very, like, pressured ‘we’re on a playdate and this is your friend and you need to play with them’ whereas a lot of freedom comes out when you’re in nature. It just relaxes people,” Campbell said.
Three years after forming the Facebook group, Forest Families of Chattanooga was officially named a non-profit organization. Campbell has built the foundation of the organization by educating members about the value nature play brings, increasing access to those in need, and creating opportunities to bring families together.
Beyond hosting workshops where she dives into the physical, mental, social, and ecological pros that come with nature play and organizing events for families to experience these first-hand, Campbell is devoted to increasing accessibility as much as she can.
For her, this means keeping as many events as possible free to all guests, providing extensive information on whether locations are stroller and/or wheelchair-accessible, and redistributing donated items to families in need.
“Can people go outside whenever they want to? Yeah, sure, but this sort of gives a community to share that with, and we want that to be accessible to everyone,” Campbell said.
Speaking of community, Campbell strives to create and organize events that are inclusive of every type of child and family. From teen hikes down to “Bumps and Babies” events for new or expectant mothers, it’s important to Campbell that Forest Families provides opportunities for all ages.
Their most popular and most frequent event, however, is Free-Play Fridays where participating children are allowed the freedom to play as they wish. This openness gives children the chance to develop their relationship with nature and learn the boundaries of what is respectful.
“We have to sort of walk a fine line between being respectful to nature but also allowing the kids to interact with nature,” Campbell said. “If you don’t let a kid touch anything or climb a tree or pick up anything or throw a rock, then they’re not going to develop that connection that leads to those benefits.”
Campbell’s hopes are seen at every event, where the children can be found exploring the realms of both their imagination and nature alongside new and existing friendships made through Forest Families.
Meet the Storyteller
Taryn Brooks is a senior attending the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a Communication major with a minor in Marketing. Brooks originally found her passion for storytelling in her multi-media journalism course and picking up a camera in her photojournalism course only excelled her love. She exemplifies her skills in journalism, visual/audio creating and editing, and photography at her internship with CH-AI: Chattanooga’s Artificial Intelligence Initiative. She has effortlessly fallen in love with the creative outlets her communication degree offers and finds herself with an ever-growing passion for the marketing world. After graduation she hopes to become the bridge between the two. She strives to give life to businesses who stand for bettering the communities around them. Contact her rqm746@mocs.utc.edu.