Educational & Wellness Program Calendar

Camp Fire Council: Community Building
Jun 20-23, 2025
In alignment with the cycles of the seasons, this 3-day summer solstice-inspired experience seeks to deepen our community’s engagement with nature and like-minded others through a semi-structured weekend of campfire council: the lost art of communing for storytelling. Join us in Harper's Ferry, WV!

Tree, Myself and Eye: Nature Photography as Therapy
Jun 28 & Jul 3, 2025
Nature photography is not only an art, but a practice of mindfulness, patience, and wonder. It lends itself to personal transformation and a deeper connection with nature when we combine this creative medium with self-reflection and contemplation. Join us for an exploration of the self and nature through a photographic lens.

8-Day Guided Vision Fast, Harper's Ferry, WV
Jul 5-12, 2025
This 8-day wilderness retreat functions as a Ceremony of Becoming, allowing participants to leave behind their daily lives and move into a ceremonial space that brings you face to face with your deepest truth with the help of nature, experienced guides and a small community of individuals.

Tree, Myself and Eye: Nature Photography as Therapy
Jul 27 & 29, 2025
Nature photography is not only an art, but a practice of mindfulness, patience, and wonder. It lends itself to personal transformation and a deeper connection with nature when we combine this creative medium with self-reflection and contemplation. Join us for an exploration of the self and nature through a photographic lens.

Connection Between Nature & Spirituality: An Exploration
Aug 08 - Oct 17 2025
This event welcomes adults with an interest in deepening their spiritual bond with nature. Group meetings draw inspiration from the book Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit and includes both group and solo activities designed to deepen our intimacy with the natural world.

Camp Fire Council: Community Building
Aug 29, 2025
Join us at Gambrill State Park for a single night Camp Fire Council event! We are hosting a free campfire meal and inviting our community to deepen their bond with one another and with nature. Join us for a semi-structured evening of campfire council: the lost art of communing for storytelling.

3-Day EcoTransference Retreat for NIT Providers
Sep 5 - 7, 2025
Are you a nature-informed practitioner filled with ideas for integrating nature into your practice that never seem to materialize? Is it possible that there is something about your own relationship to nature that’s standing in your way? Join us for an immersive forest-based training that helps us explore and face our nature biases.

Decolonizing Therapy: Peer Consultation for CEUs
Aug 19 - Sep 30, 2025
This consultation group centers around Jennifer Mullan's book, Decolonizing Therapy, and encourages participation by mental health professionals seeking to deconstruct and challenge their cultural understanding and approach to their profession for the betterment of ethical practice. CEUs pending.

3-Day Therapeutic Backpacking for Beginners
Sep 19-22, 2025
This beginner’s backpacking trip is designed to help participants learn basic travel and survival skills, play with the experience of silence, and gain insight about their capabilities going off grid. If you have questions about whether this trip is appropriate for your physical capabilities - please reach out!

Mental Health Book Club
Tuesdays, Nov-Dec 2025, 6:00
Are you overdue for a creative exploration of your emotional world? Join us for a 7-week mental health book club grounded in Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. Where art therapy meets intellect for personal growth and community connection.
Past Programs

ADHD Support Group for Women
Nov 2024 - May 2025
This monthly support group offers a compassionate space for women-identified adults to share, process, and learn with the intention of living a more empowering life. Meetings are offered in a hybrid format including virtual meetings and nature-based gatherings when the sun allows.

Mental Health Book Club
Tues, Jul-Aug, 2024 6:30
Join us for a 5-week group on parental wounds and the ways they influence our relationship to ourselves and others. The book Mother Hunger will be central to weekly discussions about attachment patterns, the use of surrogate sources of soothing, and strategies for self re-parenting and breaking unhelpful relationship cycles.

Mental Health Book Club
Tues, Jul-Aug, 2024 6:30
Join us for a gender-inclusive 6-week group study on somatic healing practices. Group discussion will be grounded in the book Returning Home to Our Bodies which explores the role of white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism embedded in modern embodiment practices. Somatic skills and practice offered in group.

Human+Nature Idea Lab Inaugural Event
Jul 13, 2024
In partnership with ThorpeWood, Outdoor Therapeutics will be co-facilitating a county-wide Creative Problem Solving event to address the question of how we increase the number of Frederick County community members that value and benefit from a bond with nature.

8-Day Guided Vision Fast
Harper's Ferry, WV
Jun 28 - Jul 05, 2024
This 8-day wilderness retreat functions as a Ceremony of Becoming, allowing participants to leave behind their daily lives and move into a ceremonial space that brings you face to face with your deepest truth with the help of nature, experienced guides and a small community of individuals.

3-Day Guided Day Hike
Harper's Ferry, WV
May 18, May 25-27, 2024
This beginner’s Day Hike is based on the Four Shields of Human Nature framework and provides participants with an opportunity to be in deep conversation with the natural world in order to gain insights, gifts, and clarity about who they are and what they offer the world.

Therapeutic Backpacking Trip, Michaux State Forest
Apr 28, May 3-5, 2024
This beginner’s backpacking trip is designed to help participants to learn basic travel and survival skills and to play with experiences of silence, solitude, and communing with nature for mental and physical wellness.

Training in Nature-Informed Attachment & Trauma
Apr 26, 2024
This training delves into the heart of biophilia - the human affinity for nature - and its crucial role in developing secure attachments and healing trauma. This immersive program co-sponsored with the Center for Nature Informed Therapy equips mental health professionals with innovative, nature-based tools and techniques

Mental Health Book Club
Sundays, Feb 2024, 10:30am
Join us for a gender-inclusive weekly discussion of one of the most profound literary works on masculinity. This book challenges patriarchal culture and the ways in which it has impacted men's healthy connection to themselves and others and encourages men to use their pain to reclaim the best part of themselves.

The Grounded Teacher
Sunday, Jan 14 2024, 9:00 am
Anxious or burned out? Finding it difficult to stay calm on the job and to feel alive after work? This FREE workshop invites teachers - new and seasoned - to gain skills for regulating their emotions and bodies inside and outside of the classroom. Join us for education and practice in working with your nervous system using Somatic Experiencing techniques.

Therapeutic Backpacking Trip (Women Only)
Sep 16, 22, 23, 24, 2023
This is a beginner level trip to the Little Orleans, MD area. Our excursions are led by certified nature-informed therapists and they are designed to support growth in the areas of mindfulness, deep reciprocal relationships with nature and technical wilderness skills.

Retreat for Women in Burnout (Fall)
Oct 13 - 15, 2023
Retreat participants will experience a quiet rural get away at Fox House among the rolling hills of Fox Haven Farm and Learning Center. Lodging, meals, mindfulness activities, discussion and facilitated time in nature are provided.
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Dirt Therapy for Teens (Ongoing)
Mar 23 - Nov 02, 2023
A therapeutic gardening program for teens (ages 13-18) combines evidenced-based therapeutic treatment with horticulture skill-building to help young people explore and improve issues related to self-esteem, mood, and relationships.

Retreat for Women in Burnout (Spring)
Apr 21 - 23, 2023
Retreat participants will experience a quiet rural get away at Fox House among the rolling hills of Fox Haven Farm and Learning Center. Lodging, meals, mindfulness activities, discussion and facilitated time in nature are provided.
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7-Week Support Group for Women in Burnout
Jun 06 - Jul 18, 2023
This is a sensory-rich experience for connecting with nature and other women struggling with personal and professional burnout. All groups are offered outdoors in order to deepen participants' relationships with nature as a co-therapist.

Therapeutic Backpacking Trip (Gender Inclusive)
May 05 - 07, 2023
This is a beginner level trip to the Little Orleans, MD area. Our excursions are led by certified nature-informed therapists and they are designed to support growth in the areas of mindfulness, deep reciprocal relationships with nature and technical wilderness skills.