​Two weeks ago I flew to Queensland to meet Mark Cartner from Walkabout training. Mark had offered to host me as part of my social work placement with the Outdoor Therapy Centre - and I was in for a treat! 

Mark runs a fantastic program with young people in year 10 from Bundaberg North High School. Over the school year he works with the students, training them in the outdoor skills necessary to gain a certificate II in outdoor recreation. As part of their training, Mark takes the students on three journeys, one in Cooloola National Park, one to the Gold Coast, and this mid-winter trip to Cape York.

I’d like to welcome Josh Heins, a social work student from Charles Sturt University on his first social work placement/internship with the Outdoor Therapy Centre.
 
Recently, Josh has worked as a freelance outdoor educator in New South Wales, Victoria, and Northern Territory. He has worked for a year in China delivering outdoor education programs with international schools and worked as a divemaster in the Cook Islands. Josh served three years as program manager at The Crossing, a unique permaculture, environmental, and outdoor education camp in New South Wales while pursuing his social work degree and qualification.

Throughout the past few months, Josh, myself, and many of the Friends of the Outdoor Therapy Centre have collaborated to develop a protocol and framework for social work placements in line with the Australian Association of Social Workers’ (AASW) accreditation standards to help social work students in Australia experience a diverse range of learning experiences in outdoor therapy. 

Last month, Josh began his 500 hour internship with the Outdoor Therapy Centre. Together, we’ve worked closely with the workplace learning team and practitioners in Australia to develop a learning plan unique to his goals and experience and inline with the AASW standards. 

Next week, Josh will attend an expedition with Mark Cartner from Walkabout Training to take a group of young people to Cape York for an outdoor therapy experience. During the expedition, Josh will implement feedback-informed treatment, gathering outcome and alliance data relevant to his own effectiveness, which can be used for supervision and critical reflection with Friends of the Outdoor Therapy Centre. 

During the placement, Josh will critically reflect on his experience networking, observing, and researching with organisations and practitioners in the Australian and international outdoor therapy community. Josh is also assisting in a new study using data from the Adventure Therapy Outcome Monitoring research project relating to outcomes of paraprofessional adventure therapy providers in Australia. This data will be presented next week as well at a policy summit hosted by Youth Flourish Outdoors. 

Josh’s favourite outdoor activity is hiking, followed by canoeing. His personal favourite location is the snowy mountains, but he loves living on the NSW South Coast in a tiny house on a farm.
After Josh graduates, he hopes to work in outdoor therapy in some yet-to-be-determined capacity, He’s especially interested in what outdoor education programs can learn from outdoor therapy and vice-versa, particularly sharing knowledge about risk management that is so well established in outdoor education literature; how counselling skills are helpful in all outdoor education programs; and how to bring trauma-informed ideas of safety into outdoor education.

We’re very excited for this development, especially when Australia’s federal government begins to pay students for their workplace learning in the helping professions. This aligns with the centre’s mission to fight for those behind us and provide accessible learning opportunities for those interested in the diverse world of outdoor therapies. 

-Will