Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors

Anngela Wells Starnes is the Director of Admissions and Marketing for Q and A Associates in West Virginia.  Anngela's entry into the wilderness therapy field started as a child for her father, Larry …

Tracey Bachrach is the Director of Business Development at Point School, Puerto Rico. Tracey entry into the wilderness field started when she as a field guide at SUWS of the Carolina's. She worked at…

Margie Lannon is Co-Founder of Onward Transitions a young adult transition program located in Portland, Maine. Margie had worked for 26 years in the wilderness field. She started as field staff on wa…

Lily Wilkinson is the Outreach Director of Aim House in Boulder, CO. Lily's entry into the wilderness field occurred when she was eighteen years old and enrolled in a wilderness therapy program which…

Audrey Peavey is Outreach Director at Potomac Program. Audrey's entry into the field occurred in 2001 when a friend of hers asked her to be the admissions director of New Horizons for Young Women. Ne…

Angie Shockley is the founder of Q & A Associates, located in Davis, West Virginia. Q & A Associates has three different programs that help young adults who have struggled to sustain a productive and…

Mary Hickey is a parent coach at Parent Coaching Professionals and Second Nature Wilderness. Her journey into the field started as a child at summer camp and progressed at Prescott College in the 199…

Sarah Mack is Director of Parent Coaching at Second Nature Wilderness Therapy. She has been a leader in the field for over 25 years.  For the majority of her career in wilderness therapy, she worked …

Heidi Strand is Executive Director at Lake House Academy in North Carolina. Heidi worked for more than 20 years as a professional in organized camping including Girl Scout camps as well as being the …

Patricia Ruggles, LCPC, is a Therapeutic Consultant at Mason and Associates. Trish has been working in the wilderness therapy field for over 15 years in a variety of positions including field staff, …

Mike Petree, Founder of Petree Consulting, which helps wilderness therapy programs do evidenced-based research by teaching effective ways to collect data and review outcomes.    

Mike shares his stor…

Bryan Delaney, Program director at SUWS of the Carolinas, has been working in the outdoors with adolescents since he was a young man. Much of his early outdoor training was in the Boy Scouts of Ameri…

Paul Wolf is the Director of the Outdoor Leadership and Wilderness Therapy Program at Southwestern Community College located in Sylva, North Carolina. This program is the only one in the nation that …

Bill Brown is the Co-founder and Family Services Director of Confluence which is a wilderness therapy program for young adults located in Thetford Center, Vermont.  Bill and his brother, Patrick, fou…

Robert Trout is the founder and director of The Experiential Healing Institute which is an organization that provides family support before, during and after treatment when a family member is in a wi…

David Koortis is a former wilderness therapy field guide at several programs including Summit Achievement and Second Nature who went onto start Good To-Go foods which makes the best lightweight dehyd…

Mark Synnott is an amazing athlete, writer and father of four. His newest book,"The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan and The Climbing Life" has just been published and is a must read for th…

Reid Treadaway, Co-founder and Admissions Director of BlueFire Wilderness Therapy, started working in the wilderness therapy field in 1996 at the Ascent Program, in Idaho, as a field guide.  After se…

Jesse Quam, educational consultant and clinical social worker, started working in the wilderness therapy field after landing a job at Aspen Achievement Academy as a field instructor in 1996.  Jesse s…