LITERATURE
What does the evidence tell us?
There is a growing amount of evidence that supports the use of outdoor therapy approaches to be just as effective as main stream mental health and well being pathways.
Ensuring that the therapeutic service is engaging and useful to clients is a key predictor of positive outcomes .
Recognising that all humans have come from nature and require a connection with nature to have an overall healthy existence is also now supported by evidence. Science is just catching up on what First Nation Peoples have known for over 60,000 years.
A genuine and healthy connection with nature along with physical activity will influence our mental, physical and social wellbeing.
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We need good food, exercise and sunshine to keep our mental health in check. (Bryan Jeffrey)
Whats informing Gippsland Adventure Therapy's practice.
PRACTICE GUIDELINES FOR CLINICAL TREATMENT OF COMPLEX TRAUMA
Blue Knot Foundation
Formerly Adults Surviving Child Abuse (ASCA) The Blue Knot Foundation have developed a set of 44 practice guidelines in delivering a helping service to people who've experienced complex trauma. 1 in 4 people have experienced multiple and compounding adverse events, trauma is something that we all face at some point in our life and for some of us we can become stuck and require a little bit of assistance to move forward on a healing journey.
TRAUMA FOCUSED ADVENTURE THERAPY
Youth Flourish Outdoors
Graham Pringle (founder of YFO) as apart of his PHD has written a model that provides us with a framework in which to plan, deliver and review adventure therapy programs with a trauma responsive focus.
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Gippsland Adventure Therapy uses a trauma focus for all of the programs we run. The added care to help people remain in their window of tolerance and use a phased approach to processing new experiences is relavent and safe for all of us regardless of any trauma background.
OUTDOOR ADVENTURE INTERVENTIONS
YOUNG PEOPLE AND ADVERSITY - A LITERATURE REVIEW
Berry Street Childhood Institute
Dr Anita Pryor of Adventure Works published this literature review for the Berry Street Gippsland Wilderness Program. It complies a large amount of articles published in the field of outdoor interventions including adventure therapy.
NATURE - BASED THERAPY
A PRACTITIONER'S GUIDE TO WORKING OUTDOORS WITH CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES
Human Nature Counselling
Nevin Harper, Kathryn Rose and David Segal coauthored the above book. Their work has brought together a vast amount of research that supports taking therapy outside and developed this practical guide for professionals
MY BIG BRAIN BOOK
Bryan Jeffrey
Bryan Jeffrey is a Psychiatric Nurse with extensive experience as a mental health clinician both in Scotland and Melbourne. Mostly working with teenagers and young adults who've experienced emotional trauma.
"My Big Brain Book" is a great resource for and teenagers or the adults supporting them to demistify mental health and how our brains work.
OUTDOOR THERAPIES
Nevin J. Harper and Will W. Dobud
"An introduction to practices, possibilities, and critical perspective"
Nevin and Will are both respectively leaders in the field of outdoor therapy research, they have both published many papers and books on the benefits of outdoor therapies and the potential for the field to continue to improve.
Will W. Dobud and Nevin J. Harper
Charles Sturt University, Australia & University of Victoria, Canada
Researches Will and Nevin look at the history of adventure therapy versus other more widely excepted forms of therapy. The results are in and you might be shocked to hear that outdoor therapies are just as effective as more main stream methods of talk therapy. This is no longer an alternative to talk therapy, just a different approach for people who don't find sitting down to talk as useful.
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The Outdoor Therapy Centre for Research and Practice established to engage with therapeutic approaches that share common practices, such as place-based learning, embodied experiences, therapeutic adventure, and nature-based stress reduction.
​Our community is interested in revealing mental health practices that include nature and the outdoors as centre to the therapeutic process. This website is designed specifically for those interested in the field. We hope you find information about how outdoor therapies can bring the benefits of being outdoors into the counselling and therapy process.