Woodland Works

A place to build, belong and simply be

Woodland Works is a long-term Focused Light project bringing adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse together through practical activity, shared experiences and time in nature. For many survivors, isolation can become part of everyday life. Shame, mistrust, anxiety and the difficulty of talking about what happened can make it hard to connect with others. For some, that isolation can become severe, contributing to hopelessness, crisis and suicidal thoughts.

Woodland Works is about creating another route to connection.

Why Woodland Works?

Not everyone finds it easy to sit in a room and talk.

Sometimes conversation happens more naturally while chopping wood, building a bench, preparing food, tending a fire or walking through the trees. Working alongside someone removes the pressure to maintain conversation or explain why you are there. Woodland Works is intentionally non-clinical. It does not replace therapy or professional support. Instead, it creates a safe environment where survivors can spend time with others who have a shared understanding, without pressure to disclose their experiences.

Breaking the silence does not necessarily begin with telling your story. It can begin by turning up, sharing a task, having a cup of tea or sitting around a fire with people who understand why some days are difficult.

Over time, those small connections can matter.

Taking part in your own way

There is no single way to participate in Woodland Works.

People can help build and develop the site, clear ground, collect and chop wood, prepare food, tend the fire or learn practical skills. Others might want to walk, sit quietly or simply spend some time in the woodland. There is no pressure to achieve and no expectation to disclose. For someone who has become isolated, simply getting out of the house and spending a few hours around other people can be an achievement in itself. The woodland allows people to move naturally between activity, conversation and quiet. Someone can join in, step away when they need to and return when they are ready.

Building something together

Woodland Works has been designed as a long-term project. Rather than bringing survivors into a finished environment, we are creating the space together. Benches are built. Ground is cleared. Food is prepared and shared. New skills are learned. Over time, individual contributions become part of something larger.

We want survivors to be able to look around the woodland and think:

We helped create this.

That sense of ownership, purpose and belonging is central to the project. Woodland Works isn’t simply something being delivered to survivors; we want it to become something shaped by the people who take part.

Connection without pressure

One of the most important things that happens at Woodland Works may have nothing to do with what we physically build. Conversation develops naturally while people work, cook, walk or sit around the fire. There can be laughter, silence, ordinary conversation and, when someone chooses, conversations about the realities of living with the effects of childhood sexual abuse. For people who may have carried their experiences alone for many years, being somewhere they don’t have to hide or explain can be powerful.

At the end of the day, we come together to eat. Preparing and sharing food around the fire is deliberately part of the project. It creates a simple point in the day when different people and different contributions come back together.

Working together

Woodland Works is based at Hakeford Woods in North Devon, whose support has given Focused Light the opportunity and freedom to develop a dedicated space for the survivor community. Without Hakeford Woods, this project would not be happening. We are also working closely with moMENtum Devon, who have helped promote Woodland Works within their membership and supported access by offering lifts to survivors who may otherwise struggle to reach the woodland. The project has been supported by Devon County Council’s Growing Communities Fund, which has helped Focused Light take Woodland Works from an idea into something we can begin building with the survivor community.

Each plays a different and important part in making Woodland Works possible.

Follow the journey

Woodland Works is only beginning. As the site develops, we will share the story through our blog — documenting what we build, the skills we learn, the meals we share and the community developing around it. The ambition is bigger than building a woodland space. It is about reducing isolation, creating purpose and belonging, helping survivors connect with others and providing another opportunity to break the silence that so many have lived with for years.

Sometimes the first step isn’t talking. Sometimes it’s simply finding somewhere you feel able to be.

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