Venture Trust offers several distinct training programmes for people interested in developing their therapeutic skills in the outdoors.
Venture Trust’s clinical Outdoor Therapy Service has developed various trainings to introduce therapeutic practitioners to an ethical, safe and creative outdoor therapy practice.
The Outdoor Therapy Training is built on Venture Trust’s 40-years of experience of working with complex clients in outdoor environments.
It has been developed by a team of multi-modality accredited therapists with decades of collective experience facilitating outdoor therapy and wilderness therapy.
Designed with counsellors, psychotherapists and allied mental health professionals in mind, it covers aspects such as, boundaries, the setting, best practice, managing risk, working with metaphor and creative exercises in a nature-based practice.
You can read our Outdoor Therapy Impact Report for 2021-22 here.
Read the Outdoor Therapy Training brochure here.
2 Day Outdoor Therapy Training: An Introduction
An introduction to working therapeutically outdoors.
This two-day training will introduce and explore the themes and issues that emerge when working therapeutically outdoors. It will give practitioners a chance to experience and practice skills, and develop their understanding of their nature-based practice.
2 Day Learning Outcomes
- Building and holding a frame outdoors
- Boundaries outdoors
- Risk
- Introduction to Good Practice
- Space to comprehend one’s own relationship to nature
- Triad work
- Experiential reflective practice exercise outdoors
- Working with metaphor
- Theory
- Tools and resources for outdoor therapeutic work
- Group and individual reflection
Dates and Locations
Friday 25th and Saturday 26th April 2025 : 9:30am-4pm
SAMH Redhall Walled Garden, 97 Lanark Rd, Edinburgh, EH14 2LZ
Friday 19th and Saturday 20th September 2025: 10am-4:30pm
Three Hares Community Woodland, Roslin EH25 9QB
Please note: The trainings will take place at two different sites. Redhall Walled Garden can be accessed by wheelchair and offers quieter indoor spaces. Three Hares Community Woodland does not have wheelchair access. If you have any accessibility needs that we can support with, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at: info@venturetrust.org.uk.
Course Fees
2 Day Training - self funded: £320
2 Day Training - paid by organisation: £365
These fees are for the training and do not include accommodation or food.
Booking
Please email info@venturetrust.org.uk to enquire about booking a space for this training programme. Bookings close 4 weeks prior to course start.
The training has been designed with accessibility in mind. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss any questions around access with us.
4 Day Outdoor Therapy Training: A Deeper Insight
A comprehensive introduction to working therapeutically outdoors and in wilder environments
This four-day course will offer trainees the possibility to learn what it means to work safely, ethically and creatively in outdoor and wilder environments. We will be living in community camping or in accommodation, and as such, it will be an immersive experience, also rich with practical and theoretical learning.
- Building and holding a frame outdoors
- Boundaries
- Managing risk
- Introduction to Good Practice
- Assessment process
- Space to comprehend one’s own relationship to nature
- Extended Triad work
- Experiential reflective practice exercise outdoors
- Reflection on embodied experience and mindfulness practices
- Working with art and metaphor
- Theory
- Tools and resources for outdoor therapeutic work
- Group and individual reflection
- Application to workplace
Dates and Locations
We are in the process of planning our next 4 Day Training. This will take place in 2025 or 2026.
Course Fees
4 Day Training - self funded: £750
4 Day Training - paid by organisation: £820
These fees are for the 4 Day Training and include three nights in shared accommodation. The fees do not include food and transport.
Booking
Please email info@venturetrust.org.uk to enquire about booking a space for this training programme. Bookings close 6 weeks prior to course start. We have had a lot of interest in our 4 Day Training so we recommend booking early.
Bespoke Training and Consultation for Organisations
Consultation and bespoke design of outdoor therapy services and training for organisations
We offer consultation and bespoke training offers for organisations looking to establish outdoor therapy services, or looking to train their teams in outdoor therapy.
The consultation process will allow an organisation to understand how they might establish an ethical and safe outdoor therapy service. This will be considered in the context of the organisation, the staff-team, the client-group, the greenspace and the community.
Areas considered in consultation
- Risk and safety
- Ethical practice
- Organisational policy
- Policy specific to Outdoor Therapy
- Insurance
- Client group
- Assessment process
- Greenspace considerations
- Staff-team and organisational set-up
- Service design
- Training in outdoor therapy skills
For further information please contact info@venturetrust.org.uk
Who is the Training For?
- 1 Day Training is designed for counsellors, psychotherapists and related professions, for example, outdoor instructors, forest school practitioners etc.
- 2 Day and 4 Day Training is designed for counsellors, psychotherapists and all allied mental health professionals, for example, art therapists, psychiatrists etc.
*These trainings are designed to serve as stand-alone trainings independently of one-another, or in conjunction with one-another.
About the Training Organisation
Venture Trust has an extensive history of offering outdoor therapy, personal development and psychotherapeutic programmes in natural and wilderness locations in Scotland. Since the 1980s, the organisation has been working with complex clients in outdoor environments, often working with issues such as the effects of trauma, isolation, involvement in the criminal justice system and recovery from problem substance use.
Drawing on the collective knowledge and experience of the organisation, Venture Trust has developed a training programme and consultancy offer to help accompany other professionals and organisations that are interested in starting an ethical and safe outdoor therapy practice or service.
You can learn more about our Outdoor Therapy service here.
About the Training Facilitators
The training programmes are facilitated by the Venture Trust Outdoor Therapy Service.
The team is made up of accredited therapists and counsellors of varying modalities, some of whom also hold professional outdoor qualifications.
- All facilitators are accredited with BACP, UKCP, BCP, COSCA, BAAT or an equivalent governing body.
- All facilitators are currently working therapeutically in outdoor or wilderness environments.
"I have worked in mental health for over 5 years and this training was the most informative and well delivered of the many trainings that I have been on in that time."
"I really enjoyed the training and think the facilitators did a brilliant job of delivering it. The site was fantastic and I came away feeling motivated and more confident - exactly what I'd hope from such a course."
"I was especially impressed with the skill, openness and enthusiasm of the facilitators."
"I hadn't expected the training to feel so personally therapeutic. When I experienced that, it not only brought the theory of outdoor therapy to life, but also affirmed that when I am working and moving through an environment that feels therapeutic, I may have a better chance of creating/providing that same rich therapeutic experience to clients."
Contact
Please contact us here for further information: info@venturetrust.org.uk
