“AR Coaching allows anyone with a love for nature to learn the AR approach to working with others. The profound experience of camaraderie in the great outdoors can truly be life changing."— Josh Flaherty, AR Guide & Executive Director of Adventure Recovery

Adventure Recovery Coaching teaches:

• Outdoor skills

• Adventurous, healthy lifestyle

• Self-directed goals

Adventure Recovery is thrilled to offer our community of compassionate, thoughtful mental health and recovery advocates. What we know, now more than ever, is that we all need ongoing, consistent time in nature for our well-being. Activities outdoors are increasingly vital for our health. The beauty of nature is what we all seek and it’s even better when we’re with people we love. On this note, Adventure Recovery Coach training is here!

Adventure Recovery Coaching allows peers and professionals who love time outside to learn and apply the AR approach to working with others. The AR Coach training imparts core skills and concepts from our AR Guide training with a strong command of the recovery coaching model overall. Since our team’s leadership background includes recovery counseling and coaching and recovery coach training expertise, this is a true complement to the Adventure Recovery model. AR offers a coaching experience that fully embraces your life experience to best reach individual goals. Our coaching services are customizable to the individual.

Recovery Coaching Through Adventure

Through personal adventures, we build esteem and come home to our sense of self, time and again. Experiences outdoors that touches the core of who we are as humans. Exercise combined with exploration, adventure, and competency impacts us in many positive ways. Studies reveal that moving our bodies outdoors is a key part of our daily mental health. In addition, research shows that proximity to the wild — green spaces, bodies of water, natural environments — boosts not only our mental health and mood, but our immunity, physiological well-being, and also affects other biomarkers of physical health.

In early recovery, it can be hard to feel connected. One may be struggling with unhealthy behavior patterns and healing takes time. A coach helps to create a tangible connection. When we combine the personal human connection found through coaching with the adventure experience, we deepen our sense of belonging, interconnectedness, and well-being. For us, this is where the magic happens.

The Adventure Recovery Coaching model trains certified AR Coaches and matches individuals seeking coaching with a credentialed AR Coach. Adventure Recovery Coaching uses outdoor experiences and metaphors as the foundational learning tools for the client-coach relationship. As clients learn to love time in nature, they have less interest in self-destructive behaviors = prevention. Furthermore, one-on-one skills building allows teens, young adults, and adults to build confidence and lifelong abilities. By engaging in these experiences, clients build self-esteem and self-efficacy in attaining their goals. Adventure Recovery Coaching guides individuals from self-destructive behaviors to healthy lives. The experiences directly translate into the coaching relationship and build positive rapport, confidence, and clarity.

Adventure Recovery Coaching Benefits:

• Empowerment and confidence

• Stronger sense of self and direction

• A more joyful and fulfilling life!

How Does AR Coaching Work?

The Adventure Recovery Coach approach provides individuals with the foundational tools and skills to integrate the “nature as healer” philosophy into the recovery coaching process. Following the training, individuals possess the necessary knowledge and impart skills and lead others safely and effectively on basic outdoor adventures. These activities include hiking, orienteering, and ceremonial activities, to name a few.

AR Coaches receive ongoing supervision and education through the Adventure Recovery leadership. If an AR Coach decides they want to pursue higher degree skill sets and greater immersion into the outdoor lifestyle, the additional training modules allow one to work toward becoming an AR Guide.  

“The AR coach training was exactly what I’d hoped it would be and more. It covered all the bases and gave me more confidence and know-how to coach clients in a safe and effective way. I would recommend this training to those just getting started as well as those like myself who have some experience. Having ongoing peer support and supervision is also something I look forward to using in to continue to grow in my practice and the field.” - Shane D.

Adventure Recovery is not a treatment provider. These services are guiding, coaching, mentoring, and education focused. We provide clinical support and additional mental health resources, if needed, through our clinical support staff in the mental health and substance use disorder treatment fields.

Images courtesy of Unsplash + DJ Pierce