Measuring is knowing: The use of BHS as monitoring instrument in the practise of the green care farm

The increase in the interest for the theme agriculture-green-health in the society is profound. The idea to care for psychiatric patients in green surroundings was initiated one and a half century ago. Continuing on this path we now see that that green care farms replace the pavilions located in green areas, whereas the main difference is that clients (patients with limited intellectual capabilities) are now provided with work in an agricultural setting. The effectiveness of their stay and their work within such a – green – environment is monitored within the project “Effectiveness of working and living on a green care farm for various target groups” at the green care farm “de Hoge Born” in Wageningen, the Netherlands. This project is based on the monitoring instrument BHS (Behavioural Health Status). The Louis Bolk Institute and the University of Wageningen would like to make use of this monitoring instrument in a wider scope and could provide European institutes the possibility to use BHS on a large scale. The objective of the proposed project is to set-up a monitoring centre for (research in) psycho-social green care farms in Europe. The monitoring centre provides target information regarding the individual patient diagnoses report derived by means of BHS, provides support for the interpretation thereof and evaluates patient data based on the BHS database.

Meten_is_weten_monitoringsinstrument_BHS_projectvoorstel-v2_ENGLISH.doc — Microsoft Word Document, 31Kb