2024 Wilderness Risk Management Conference

This workshop will highlight the pros and cons of current wilderness therapy (WT) program models. It will address the concept of totalistic youth programming and the critiques of the “troubled teen industry” by highlighting client rights and client voice. The workshop presenters bring perspectives of WT clients, field staff, clinicians, and researchers. Together, the facilitators hope to promote a safe and open space for dialogue to better establish a trauma-responsive WT intervention model. The larger context of mental health treatment in the US will be highlighted as a limitation but with a focus on how both wilderness and adventure therapy practitioners can embrace more of a human rights perspective, bringing in some of the work of the recent work done by the ATIC Ethics Committee, as well as the revisions being made to the OBH Accreditation Standards re: involuntary treatment and transport.