Sea to Tree Health & Wellness

As mental health professionals, we know that access to green space plays an important role in our community's mental wellbeing, and as such we are fiercely protective of our environment.

This land is not only in the core of Sooke, but also in a neighbourhood that is trying to maintain a level of peace and tranquility as our town grows.

As the stewards of this property, we want to not only maintain as much green space as possible, but improve its accessibility and usefulness to the public (by adding accessible parking, a nature play area, and a garden) as well as make sure that the building itself is aesthetically pleasing.

Sea to Tree is owned locally. Tara Munro was raised and continues to live in Sooke. Our whole team cares deeply about our local community.

1. We will make sure that the building and parking lot have the minimum necessary footprint, and build upwards from there.
   The building and parking will be confined to what is currently a gravel field, and not on the current green space.
2. We will preserve the trees on the property as they are now. Everything else will be structured around the existing natural features as much as possible.
3. Our play area will be designed with safety and nature in mind. Tree stumps, wood rounds, and ropes will allow children to explore the space, integrated in the existing natural environment. 
4. Our sensory garden of natural plants will be a perfect place to sit and ponder as well as a much needed resource for bees and other local wildlife.
5. This green space will remain available to the general public for free, access will not be limited to those who use Sea to Tree's health and wellness services.

We need more counselling space so we can continue to serve our community with counselling and coaching services with minimal (or no) wait times. We have enough willing practitioners, and definitely enough need for services - it is the office space that is the bottleneck!

There is also a growing need for massage therapy (RMTs), and more space would allow us to increase massage services and reduce wait times for those.

We need a larger space so we can offer yoga and other movement-based offerings as well as group workshops. This space can then also be used for a range of other community activities as the need arises.

Given the opportunity, in time we would like to create a holistic bouquet of other wellness services.

It is important to us that we continue to work closely with other wellness providers in Sooke and foster a positive and collaborative relationship to fill existing gaps in the services needed, and allow our clients to get the best care and services they need. We are not in competition with other local wellness providers.

We will have

• accessible parking
• elevator access to each floor of the building
• accessible washrooms on each floor

We are looking into improved accessibility options for the nature play area.

We welcome your feedback, ideas and suggestions for accessibility and mobility features useful to you.

We are currently giving back to the community as much as we can, with frequent free and reduced-price service offerings such as free workshops and subsidized counselling programs.

Growing the centre will allow us to provide more paid counselling services, which in turn help to finance our subsidized programs. The more counselling Sea to Tree can provide in total, the more resources we have to provide services at discounts.

Running a group practice is one thing - there is a higher need for mental health services and massage than ever before, our practice is busy! But we have always wanted Sea to Tree to be more than that. We want to invest in our community's mental resilience and stability, and create a ripple effect.

We want the community to be involved in the planning and development of this centre as much as possible. Here are steps we have taken so far:

• our online survey, asking for feedback, ideas, questions and concerns, as well as being available at public events to communicate with you directly
• collecting contact details of anybody who would like to actively be involved in the developing stages
• collecting contact details of anybody who would like to offer their services at the new centre in collaboration with Sea to Tree
• working with local Sooke businesses - from architects to construction to marketing
• creating new opportunities for local Sooke suppliers of health & wellness services, as we will have more space for more local practitioners to work out of

Sea to Tree is locally owned and committed to our local community's needs.

Sooke is facing an incredible challenge right now in providing the commercial space that our growing community needs, across various industries. If you have tried opening a business here recently, you know!

As a prime example of this, the lack of office and studio space puts severe limitations on our ability to provide enough mental health and wellness services to Sooke residents, both in volume and in variety/range.

More space will allow us to collaborate with a higher number of practitioners, offering a broader range of services, providing opportunities for small business owners / solopreneurs who are in dire need of studio or office space for their workshops here in Sooke.

In turn, this means that our practitioners and their clients have the option of getting services here in Sooke, rather than driving to Langford or Victoria.