Workshop Abstract

After what will be an amazing and dynamic 9IATC, this post conference workshop will nurture rich reflections, deep conversations, and revitalising experiences. Consider this workshop a reflective and playful tonic to help you ruminate, pivot, and prepare for homeward journeys.

The workshop will be co-designed by attending participants in. partnership with the facilitator team and a magnificent local support crew. It will provide an experiential place and a reflective space for each participant to use in ways that are beneficial for them.

Head clearing

The workshop will allow participants to dive in and integrate important threads of knowledge and skills inspired by the 9IATC, and co-create and pathways for current and future efforts in their own community. (Examples of themes that may emerge: cross-cultural practice, ethics, research, training, supervision, field placements, international collaboration, or any other area of interest you bring!).

Heart warming

The workshop is also an opportunity to enjoy playing and dreaming together, and perhaps co-create a collective vision based on shared purpose and future collaboration. The theme of this workshop extends the 9IATC conference theme ‘Journeying together’ by raising our gaze to ‘Look to the horizon’.

Hand crafting

This workshop is for those who are comfortable with not knowing, and ready to sit with others to co-create a meaningful and enjoyable experience together. The workshop will not be overly structured or directed by the facilitation team; its structure and processes will be shaped by the hopes and interests of the whole group. If participants want to rest and play rather than talk and think, that is what will happen.

The workshop will take shape as the experience unfolds. Two frameworks will be offered for possible use by the group during the workshop: Adventure Works Australia’s ‘Outdoor Therapy Practice Framework’, and the ‘Map of Meaning’ framework for balancing effort and ease in a meaningful life.

Workshop Facilitators

Ben Knowles trained in education, outdoor education, experiential learning, and narrative therapy. Ben brings to this workshop skills and ideas drawn from ‘collective narrative practices’ intended to support unity amongst diverse ideas and work towards felt sense of common purpose and solidarity in collaboration. Ben was pivotal in establishing the Australian Association for Bush Adventure Therapy (AABAT) and has taught Outdoor Education and Bush Adventure Therapy at a tertiary level. Alongside undertaking his PhD in public health, he works as a Co-director of Adventure Works Australia, is Australian representative on the International Adventure Therapy Committee, and works as a senior clinician and trainer in the Neurosequential model of therapeutics for Berry Street Victoria.

Anita Pryor has been involved in the field of Bush Adventure Therapy (BAT) for over two decades in roles of practitioner, manager, trainer, and researcher/evaluator. Having trained in outdoor education, solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy, and family therapy in the 1990’s, in 2009 she completed a PhD in Public Health investigating the histories, practices, outcomes and evidence base of Australian outdoor adventure interventions. From 2012 to 2015 she was co-chair of the International Adventure Therapy Committee (ATIC) and international representative on of the Australian Association for Bush Adventure Therapy (AABAT). Anita currently supports BAT in Australia as Co-director of Adventure Works Australia Ltd and co-leader of AABAT’s Outdoor Healthcare policy unit. 

Amanda Smith (pronouns she/ her) is a lecturer in the School of Health Sciences and Social Work at Griffith University, Australia. Amanda is an enthusiastic social worker with over two decades experience working in various community and government sectors including direct service delivery, counselling, therapeutic program design and facilitation, leadership and training / education. Amanda founded a Bush Adventure Therapy program within a national NGO service and designed, facilitated and evaluated numerous BAT programs. Amanda has developed a keen passion, advocacy and practice base in Bush Adventure Therapy (BAT) and is eager to continue collaborations and pursue research that integrates and expands BAT/ Outdoor Health into the evolving ecosocial work / green social work discourse, practice base and curriculum/ training pathways. Amanda was the previous Queensland representative and national Chair of the Australian Association for Bush Adventure Therapy (AABAT).

Vibeke Palucha is the coordinator of the Outdoor Therapy Team at the Department of Child and Adolescent Mental Health at Sørlandet Hospital. She is an experienced therapist and social worker with a master’s degree in mental health. She has trained in dialogical practices, trauma therapies, emotion focused skills training for parents and is a MediYoga instructor and mindfulness coach. Vibeke’s outdoor therapy experience includes co-developing and facilitating “friluftsterapi” for at risk youth, developing and facilitating an outdoor therapy day program for teenagers with mental health issues and problems attending school and developing a nature based and emotion focused multifamily program for families with children in need of specialized mental health treatment at the hospital. She co-developed and teaches at the university course Nature Based Therapeutic Work at the University of Agder and is co-authoring the first Norwegian book on outdoor therapy to be published in the fall of 2022. Vibeke has been part of the 9IATC planning process since 2018.

Joshua McLean won’t be joining us but is helping behind the scenes, he is a Master of Public Health and Master of Social Work practitioner who brings a diverse spectrum of health practice responses to his work as a Bush Adventure Therapy (BAT) Practitioner in the South-East of Australia.