Social Sciences Week 2024!

Social Sciences Week 2024 is just about a month away. This is a grassroots movement for researchers and practitioners to share their work to the wider audience. We've put together a cool series of presentations. Please register for all/any that interest you as this will also help with sharing the recordings.

As with all resources developed by the Outdoor Therapy Centre, these recordings are free for all of those interested and can be shared widely. As always, share everything...

Outdoor Therapies: Client Outcomes and Pathways for Change
​Dr. Will Dobud & Professor Nevin Harper
This presentation will examine the contemporary research and evidence-base related to outdoor therapies. Attendees will examine what works in outdoor therapy and explore how to become not only evidence-builders themselves, but evidence-informed outdoor practitioners.

Wilderness Therapy and the Dissociative Mechanism of Change: Protecting Youth from Systemic Harm
Dr. Graham Pringle
This presentation explores the use of cognitive or adaptive dissonance and involuntary treatment foin Wilderness and adventure therapy (WT, AT) for youth. Past WT participants have protested that involuntary, inescapable and harsh conditions harmed them through PTSD and dissociation. In this presentation, we compare dissonance and dissociation using a critical realist and argumentative research process using publicly available data. We argue that dissociation is a response, recorded both in the design of some WT practices and in participant statements and is often mistaken for dissonance. Deliberate use of forced cognitive dissonance during involuntary treatments align with the conditions that may cause dissociation. Therefore, planning to enforce cognitive dissonance during coercive WT or AT is likely to be harmful and, knowing of this potential, may be regarded as malpractice.

Engaging Young Children in Nature-Play
Dr. Jasmine MacDonald
This presentation provides a synthesises of the research evidence relating to young children's engagement in nature play. The presentation will cover what nature play is factors, impacting the likelihood of young children engaging in nature play, and ways to support parents to involve young children in nature play.

Kids These Days: Youth Mental Health from 40,000 Feet
Professor Nevin Harper & Dr. Will Dobud
Join Professor Nevin Harper and Dr. Will Dobud as they discuss the findings from their recent Kids These Days project. The Kids These Days book, scheduled for publication in 2025, was born from conversations with leading experts in all things related to youth mental health and the current mental health crisis occurring in our youth. While many have argued its caused by the phones, overprotection, or even bad therapy, this presentation zooms way out to discuss some of the wicked problems impacting youth, and what adults can do about it.

Conversation as Experiential Learning: We Make the Road by Walking
Associate Professor Susan Mlcek, Dr. John Paul Healy, & Dr. Will Dobud
This event will delve into how genuine, caring, and culturally intuitive conversations can transform collective experiences into knowledge. Join educators from Charles Sturt University's School of Social Work and Arts to discuss how philosophy underpinning experiential learning not only created the groundwork for social work education, but can be revisited to transform student experiences.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Outdoor Adventure Therapy Education: A Mixed Methods Study (Registration Link Coming Soon)
Daniel Cavanaugh, PhD, LCSW, Cristy E. Cummings, PhD, LMSW, Winnie Liu, M.Ed., NCC, LPC-A, & Chris Russo, LICSW
This presentation will cover the results of a recent large survey of an international cohort of adventure therapy practitioners. The workshop will include discussion about the implications for improving diversity, access, and quality of adventure therapy education.