Health and Education

Therefore all staff members participate in a minimum of 80 hours of initial staff training until the Executive and Field Directors believe they are proficient in the following skills: Instruction in safety procedures and proper equipment usage (fuel, fire, life protection) Instruction in emergency procedures like medical, evacuation, weather, or fire Basic first-aid Navigation skills (map and compass use for navigation) Local environmental precautions (terrain, weather, insects, poisonous plants) Planned response to adverse situations or emergency evacuations Counseling, teaching, supervisory skills, leadership, leadership, communication, relational skills, and wilderness hard skills Managing, preparing, and conserving water, food, and shelter Low impact wilderness expedition and environmental conservation skills Group management (containment, control, safety, conflict resolution, and behavior management) Sanitation procedures; water, waste, food, etc. Report writing, inc...

At Blue Ridge, we are dedicated to   Whole Family Support  and believe in Family Systems oriented treatment . Led by our seasoned and compassionate clinical and family support teams, Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness provides the most effective and clinically integrated family experience, which contributes to foundational transformation in teens and their families. Transforming core dynamics for families occurs through the utilization of individualized clinical treatment, together with intensive family-focused support, and whole body health and wellness. As we continue to evolve, we adhere to our commitment to provide the most comprehensive, integrated family support by welcoming two Family Therapists to our treatment team. We are proud to announce the addition of  Kayla Davenport, MS  and  Elizabeth Newton, MS, MFT  to our Family Support Program. They have spent a great deal of time training with our clinical team and spending time in the field...

As my training in EMDR was coming to a close, I had an interesting conversation with one of the primary facilitators, Frank. He described his efforts to bring EMDR treatment into public schools. He spoke with conviction about the need for and potential benefits of this treatment for children, and he lamented the opposition he’d encountered. Some of the students were very resistant, and this paled in comparison to parents who thought the protocol looked a lot like hypnosis. Though frustrated by this, Frank smiled as he described the solution he’d devised. Proudly, Frank displayed a toy ball that flashed when he slammed it against the table. “It’s the same thing!”, he exclaimed. “They can stare at this and get the same benefits!” Intrigued, I thought of my upcoming work at Blue Ridge Therapeutic Wilderness. “What’s the difference in that and staring into a campfire?”, I asked Frank. “Nothing!”, he said. I explained my future work environment, and Frank encouraged me to explore my ...

David and I both knew that the end was near. It's raining in the Chattahoochee National Forest, the kind of cold rain that sings like a siren, seducing and inviting one to withdraw from the light, airy, cathedral of the mind, to descend into the sweet, watery depths of the soul. He and I were sitting under a tarp, shelter from the rain, huddling around the small, smoky fire that served to dissolve the boundary between us. It was David's 100th day in our wilderness therapy program, each of the previous days stretching through time, falling through space until they collected into a large pool, which seemed to be the totality of his young life. Each of these days, in recollection, seemed to be a journey of sorts through all the kingdoms of possible human experience: the outer darkness of parental betrayal, the scented oasis of joy, the citadel of teenage power and the open road of freedom. Yet, on this 100th day, here we were in the most unexpected of domains, the grave...

I discovered this incredible work by chance while searching through a listing of outdoor jobs on an online database in the summer of 2011. As a recent college graduate, I was neck deep in the angst of entering the job force. I had never heard of Wilderness Therapy before, and honestly, I remember feeling unsure if I wanted to do it or not. I pictured a boot camp where students just cried all day and yelled at each other as field instructors ran around saying things like, “take accountability for your actions!” or, “let the tears flow!” Nonetheless, something about it captivated my imagination. So I applied for a job as a Field Instructor and read every book about it I could get my hands on. As I read  Shouting At The Sky , a book describing a writer’s personal wilderness therapy experience, I started to understand that this wasn’t like anything else I had ever heard of; it sounded compassionate, powerful, raw, even sacred. Two months later I was asked to join a training group ...

I discovered this incredible work by chance while searching through a listing of outdoor jobs on an online database in the summer of 2011. As a recent college graduate, I was neck deep in the angst of entering the job force. I had never heard of Wilderness Therapy before, and honestly, I remember feeling unsure if I wanted to do it or not. I pictured a boot camp where students just cried all day and yelled at each other as field instructors ran around saying things like, “take accountability for your actions!” or, “let the tears flow!” Nonetheless, something about it captivated my imagination. So I applied for a job as a Field Instructor and read every book about it I could get my hands on. As I read  Shouting At The Sky , a book describing a writer’s personal wilderness therapy experience, I started to understand that this wasn’t like anything else I had ever heard of; it sounded compassionate, powerful, raw, even sacred. Two months later I was asked to join a training gro...

As the  Family Support Therapist at Blue Ridge , I work with the parents of our students in the field. My role is to offer space for families to experience their own process, which often parallels the student process but is distinctly different for obvious reasons. Teens are in the woods, with both the discomfort that it brings and the luxury of not having to attend to their “normal” lives.  They get to be completely present with their feelings, wrapped up in 24/7 support. On the flip side, parents are trying to manage day to day life, kids, finances, responsibilities, etc. AND participate in this incredibly intense emotional experience. Parents have often been in crisis mode with their kids for months or years leading up to the wilderness experience and are quite simply exhausted. This sets the stage for discussion of self-care…before we can do meaningful work on family dynamics, parents must restore some semblance of their own emotional balance and stability. This is ...

Now that you know the basics about  mindfulness , let’s dive in a little bit more… The benefits of mindfulness So why practice mindfulness?  As we take time to be present to our experiences, and practice focusing on the present, we actually rewire our brains by creating new neural networks.  What are neural networks, you ask? When we learn behavior (how to swim, how to write the alphabet, how to drive a car) we create a neural network in the brain--neural networks, essentially, are neurons collecting signals from others and this creates an electric activity that creates connective branches in the brain. The more we repeat this behavior, the stronger the neural network becomes, and we establish this network as an “expert”—meaning that it is fully learned behavior (we don’t have to relearn it).  Students hiking through the wilderness is a beautiful metaphor for this process.  Imagine a single-track trail in the woods.  The more this single-track is u...