It was when Kim Sacksteder was 19 years old and working at a teen crisis shelter in 1993 when she first observed the effectiveness of experiential education. Specifically, she discovered that teens respond better to treatment when activities are involved. They engage much better with the people trying to help them. As Kim continued to pursue her own education, she started looking around for resources and tools shown to be effective in treating at-risk youth and in 1999, she found AEE online and attended her first conference. With AEE, Kim found the means develop as a professional given her interests and Master’s in social work. Said Kim, "I had this idea, but no-one in my area to help me connect that clinically. It was so nice to find out that there was already a field supporting this. I would also like to credit the Therapeutic Adventure Professional Group (TAPG) for keeping me motivated over the years."

Kim supervises an adventure therapy program called Wilderness Bond. They work in collaboration with other agencies treating high school and middle school youth struggling with behavior and mental health issues. In their community, they are the only provider of adventure based mental health services, so they provide a unique component to a client's overall treatment program.
Agencies typically find out about our services by word of mouth. Clients come to Wilderness Bond from residential, outpatient, partial hospitalization, and community based programs.  They have been at capacity for 5 years and are not able to accommodate everyone that wants their services. Said Kim, "When I first started, I did everything by myself including direct service, invoicing, intake, and filing. I am happy to have two colleagues now who have really helped the program grow."

The activities that they do are selected based on the needs of the group. They start with general ideas of what the group may need to focus on, and then plan specific activities depending on how the youth are functioning that day. Some of the tools Kim and her colleagues include games, initiatives, high constructed elements,  and high ropes courses. They also do multi-day trips with activities such as backpacking, rock climbing and rappelling.  We work on communication, relationship, problem solving and coping skills with individuals, groups and families. When someone enters the program, they set a specific goal for themselves related to their treatment process. For example, they might want to learn how to handle anger when frustrated. It works - these techniques derived from experiential education. Said Kim, "I love working with kids and my favorite thing about my job is that I get to see them discover their strengths. "

Kim and Wilderness Bond wrote a success story about one of our clients for a funder:
Maria, 16, entered our program through a residential treatment facility where she was working through the challenges of her past trauma and mood disorders. She had a significant history of self harming and depression that made it difficult for her to be successful. Maria struggled to talk about her issues and to trust anyone. Her appearance was withdrawn and unhappy. Maria spent the next 18 months of her life in and out of the residential program and psychiatric hospitalizations. When she started our program, Maria enjoyed the activity base and began working with her peers to successfully complete the initiatives presented to their group. Maria began speaking up and taking leadership in the activities. She discovered strengths that she did not realize and began to cope with the challenges of her past. Over time, Maria became an effective communicator and problem solver.
Maria completed our program this year after participating in an expedition for successful program graduates. During this trip, she was clearly a centering and calming influence on the group, a distinct change from the withdrawn and morose girl who started the program 18 months before. Maria successfully graduated from high school last spring and is entering college this fall!

top

BAWTmobiles Affordable Transportation

BAWTmobiles Affordable Transportation (pdf) 

Outward Bound Sets a New Course

Outward Bound Press Release (pdf)

Jensen, Eric (2006) Enriching the Brain. Published by Jossey-Bass. 286 pages. ISBN 978-0-470-22389-5 Book review by Kirsten Kindt, in Boulder, Colorado

When I was fishing around the book store for some work related reading, I came across "Enriching the Brain" by Eric Jensen. This book inspired me to grab a highlighter frequently and I thought it was worthy of sharing with our members.

The premise of the book is that an "enriched environment" results in measurable changes in the brain (physical and cognitive). An enriched environment is defined by the author as one that is superior when contrasted to a lesser (control) condition.

Contrasting environments are an aggregate of key factors that have been shown through research to produce the desired enhancements in the brain. The aim of the book is to maximize every learner’s potential, and to do so the author suggests that educators create classrooms that provide a consistently high percentage of contrasting factors for enrichment over time.  The seven key factors:

1. Physical activity - “…One study found that joggers consistently performed better than nonjoggers on learning and memory tests that required the use of the prefrontal cortex.” (p. 178, Neuroscience Research, 2004)
   Physical activity has been shown to improve self concept, reduce stress and aggression and improve academic performance. And it may be a protective factor against depression. (p. 178, European Journal of Public Health, 2005)
2. Novel, challenging, and meaningful learning - “Where physical activity may enhance the production of new cells…it is the novel learning that appears to increase the brain cell survival and functionality.” (p. 180) “Neuroscientists…have repeated shown in nonhuman primate experiments that an area of the brain gets activated when we think the task is “worth learning.” (p. 68, Science, 1998)
3. Coherent complexity - “UCLA researcher Bob Jacobs found that learners who had more challenge and more complexity in their academic schedules had more dendritic growth and connectivity.” (p. 69, The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 1993)
4. Managed stress levels - Excess noise and poor lighting have been shown through research to reduce standardized math and reading test scores. (p. 72)
5. Social support - “Animal studies have shown that those reared in “isolation show increased anxiety and poorer performance in learning and spatial memory tasks” (p. 73, Hellemans)
6. Good nutrition - “In a study examining the long-term impacts of nutritional supplements (given to children from birth to age seven), the findings were significant. Not only were numeracy, reading and vocabulary test scores higher then years later, when followed up at ages eleven to twenty six there was even improved socioeconomic status compared with the control group.” (p. 75, Journal of Nutrition, 1995)
7. Sufficient time - “A wide range of rat brain changes induced by eighty days of enrichment efforts were more persistent than those induced by thirty days of enrichment efforts.” (p. 76, Physicological Behavior, 1974)

The author touches on most of the brain enriching activities established in popular press over the years including early maternal attention, exposure to music, physical activity, social support, and how to nurture gifted brains. Likewise, behaviors linked to a decrease in brain development are discussed including poverty, uncontrolled stress, poor nutrition and boredom.

There are over 500 citations referenced in the book and with such a broad focus, it can be difficult to discern the most important take-aways. For me, the underlying message might be that you have to seek ways to encourage students self acceptance in order to see them reach greater heights. And the surest way to get more kids to grasp their own human potential, is to have them spend as much time in an enriched environment as possible.

Here is a sample of some of the passages I underlined:

”What if you opened up the measurements [of human potential] to a much broader set of indicators. As an example, we might agree that one's life be enhanced if he or she:
1. Had a more optimistic attitude and enjoyed life more
2. Got sick less often, and for a shorter time
3. Enjoyed consistently better-quality relationships
4. Had a strong love of learning
5. Had a stronger, more resilient response to distress
6. Was better able to self-regulate mood without drugs or alcohol
7. Participated more in life
8. Ate well enough to slow the aging process
9. Had extraordinary persistence and determination
10. Was able to adapt well to changes in housing, school, and relationships" (p. 175)

"Researcher Marian Diamond has shown that rats will actually have brain cells in the cerebral cortex thinned by the experience of boredom." (p.176, Magic Trees of the Mind, 1998)

"...[the] abysmal failure of students to transfer learning from school subjects to real life is legendary and cuts across age, IQ, and social status." (p. 20, Child Development, 1994)

"In theater, drama, dance, and other performance arts, subjects improve emotional intelligence, timing, reflection, respect for diversity, and even SAT scores." (p. 182, Arts with the Brain in Mind, 2001)

School that provide enhancement use the following; mentorships, peer counseling programs, cooperative learning, clubs, and team sports. (p. 188)

From laboratory mice enrichment studies, Henriette van Praag at the Salk Institute concluded, "Essentially, all measures affected by an enriched environment depend on, and have not been dissociated from, an increase in voluntary motor behavior or exercise." (p. 55, Nature Reveiw Neuroscience, 2000)

"The evidence is that the less maternal time early on, the more the problems later on." (p. 107)

top