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Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors

Dec 31, 2019

Samuel Adams, Lead Field Guide at Aspiro Adventures. Sam grew up in the Adirondacks region of New York with a family who embraced the outdoors.  In high school, he became a father and struggled to handle it.  He grew through the struggle and became connected with wilderness therapy in college. His dream in college was...


Dec 23, 2019

Norman Elizondo is the Family Wellness Counselor at Open Sky. Norman's journey into the wilderness field began when his dying mother encouraged him to leave his finance career and "do something that would really help people." Norman shares his extraordinary journey from being an immigrant from the Philippines to growing...


Dec 16, 2019

Doug Dobkowski is a Team Leader at Summit Achievement.  Doug grew up in New Jersey and went on to get a teaching degree in college. Doug worked as a middle school teacher for eight years in Newark. He shares his story of how he began an Outing Club at the middle school, which inspired him to become an outdoor leader....


Dec 10, 2019

Zhenda Glover is a field guide at Evoke Cascades located in Oregon.  She was born and raised in Bulgaria and had never heard the two words "wilderness' and "therapy" put together until she moved to Oregon.  Zhenda became enamored with wilderness therapy after attending a field guide orientation at Evoke and has been...


Nov 30, 2019

Rachel Rollins is a therapist at Juniper Canyon Recovery Center in Utah. She first learned about wilderness therapy when she was enrolled in a program as a teen which is where she first learned to "love self and wilderness." After graduating from the University of Vermont, Rachel traveled the world but felt unsatisfied...