INTEGRATING NATURE INTO YOUR CLINICAL PRACTICE

A Premiere Training Course

Our ecotherapy training and certification is a three-month program for individuals who want to integrate nature and mental health, includes 28.5 CEU Credits.

Part I: a 3-day intensive course

Part II: 3-month online mentorship

Participants of our training and certification program will receive an overview of significant research findings, learn how to assess a client for ecotherapy, choose appropriate therapy locations, discover suitable therapeutic approaches, and practical elements to get you and your clients into the natural world.

Participants will receive a Starter Kit to launch your own nature informed therapy practice. The kit will include:

- Informed consent for NIT
- Sample Outdoor Waiver
- Intake Form that includes ecological assessments
- Important gear list
- Safety checklist
- Sample statement/reading that speaks to ethical land use and acknowledges decolonization efforts
- Code of Outdoor Therapy Ethics
- A booklet with nature informed interventions, exercises, and activities
- Wilderness first aid pocket guide

Course tuition includes a certificate of completion for the program and 28.5 CEU

We offer the interest-free installment payment option. Please email billings@cmhcweb.com to set up the installment option.

Program Agenda

Program Details

Program Instructors

Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan

Heidi Schreiber-Pan, Ph.D., LCPC, NCC is a successful psychotherapist, author, clinical director and sought-after nationwide speaker on topics of resilience, anxiety, neuroscience, and occupational burnout. As an affiliate and former faculty member of Loyola University, Maryland, her past research has focused on resiliency, psychological well-being, and nature-based mental health.

Dr. Schreiber-Pan has developed unique continuing education courses that combine established clinical methods such as CBT with innovative treatment approaches including nature-based psychotherapy and neuro-counseling.

Her largest research project investigated the role of nature on mental health and spirituality.

She is the author of Taming the Anxious Mind: A guidebook to relieve stress and anxiety.

Zoe Jack

Zoe Jack is a licensed psychotherapist at Chesapeake Mental Health Collaborative where she specializes in nature informed and client centered work with children, adolescents, and adults. As a former wilderness therapy field guide in Utah and a behavior interventionist at a trauma informed school in Vermont, Zoe incorporates the teachings of the natural world into her treatment approach with individuals and groups.In 2017, Zoe had the opportunity to thru hike the 2,190 mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, solidifying her therapeutic philosophy that connection and presence lead to meaningful healing and growth. Zoe holds her Master's degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland and currently serves as the advisor to CMHC's Center for Nature Informed Therapy.

Phillip McKnight

Phillip has experience teaching a wide variety of ages, backgrounds, and abilities and uses his MA in Instructional Systems Design to determine the needs of the participant and help them develop skills in mindfulness meditation with tools for body, heart, mind, and community. Trained in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, Phillip will help design and facilitate course implementation. In addition, Phillip brings with him fifteen years of environmental leadership where he has acted as a naturalist, educator, community advocate, and guide for groups such as The Audubon Society and Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Dr. Paul Deal

Dr. Paul Deal earned his PhD in spiritually integrated approaches to psychotherapy with a research focus in the holistic implications of a sacred relationship to nature. His nature-based clinical experience includes six years working as a nature guide and therapist for "troubled teens" and their families. Currently, he teaches coursework in ecotherapy and supervises graduate counselors-in-training in nature informed therapy at SUNY Plattsburgh. He also teaches nature-based mindfulness meditation in the community. The natural beauty of the Champlain valley of the Adirondack mountains is a daily teacher in the practice of living with presence, wonder, and gratitude.

Course Objectives

Working knowledge of current research in the field of nature informed therapy
Assess specific populations, diagnoses, and treatments goals
Assess clients fit for ecotherapy
Evaluate appropriate locations and gears.
Administer an Ecological Wellness Checkup
Describe Dr. Schreiber-Pan’s Ecological Model of Psychological Well-being
Apply suitable therapeutic approaches
Apply activities that use Metaphor, Ritual, and Ceremony
Use nature-based interventions that inform treatment goals
And many more...

Who Should Attend

Psychologists
Counselors
Social Workers
Life Coaches
Wilderness professionals
Practitioners in the wellness and nature fields.

Prerequiste

1. Write your own nature autobiography

2. Assigned readings / film

3. A Mental Health First Aid course is required for all non-mental health practitioners.

3 Month online mentorship program

Small group mentorship to maximize learning includes:

A virtual, one-on-one meeting with a mentor for consultation purposes, once per month
A virtual meeting with a small group to discuss nature informed practice and application of content and goals, once per month.
In addition to the mentorship elements, the 3-month, online ecotherapy training program and certification through the Center of Nature Informed Therapy will include a self-directed learning module. This module will consist of training videos, select reading materials and consequent assignments. You will receive all materials for this module at the end of the intensive. Those materials are delivered asynchronously where participants can learn on their own schedule (self-paced learning).

WHAT OUR PARTICIPANTS SAY

“Hands down, the best, most inspiring, training I have attended in my 25 years as a social worker. I am, today, the very next day impactfully using the strategies and concepts that I learned in this training to help my clients. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”