Through our Outdoor Play Support Groups, we aim to work with children and caregivers who have experienced the following adverse childhood experiences:
- Grief & Loss
- Gender Based Violence (Domestic Violence / Intimate Partner Violence)
- Poverty (Resulting in Housing and Play Insecurity)
- Abuse and Neglect (Engaged with Child Protection Services)
- Postpartum Isolation and Vulnerability
We know that children aren’t okay when caregivers aren’t okay, and vice versa. We also know that adverse childhood experiences are often intergenerational, and impact the whole family ecosystem. As a result, all our programs offer an unstructured play program for children run by two trained play facilitators, and then concurrently a parent’s group on the same site that is experiential and land-based, also run by 1-2 trained facilitators, Our staff have diverse backgrounds that range in play, trauma-informed practice, counseling, early childhood education, and social work.
All our Outdoor Play Support Groups run for ten weeks where we gather, rain or shine, in a space of collective care while taking the opportunity to play and be in nature with support. Each week facilitators offer evidence-based programming and unstructured play designed to achieve program objectives; however, the facilitators are committed to a responsive program model in which participant needs and interests will inform the content week over week.